World Road Race Championships: Silver for Mark Cavendish
Team Dimension Data for Qhubeka place 4 riders in top 20 at World Championships
The 2016 UCI World Road Race Championships concluded today with the elite men’s 257km road race. Defending champion, Peter Sagan (Slovakia) was able to retain his crown and sprinted to victory just ahead of our very own Mark Cavendish and Tom Boonen (Belgium) placed 3rd.
Team Dimension Data for Qhubeka were proud to have no less than 16 riders take the start in Doha this morning, all ready to represent their respective nations. As racing got underway it was riders from our African Team that really lit up the race. Nic Dougall (South Africa) was joined by Natnael Berhane (Eritrea) in an attack after just 3km of racing. Our 2 African riders pulled 5 more riders away with them to form the break of the day.
As the lead group made its way up the Arabian Gulf, the peloton was happy to give them a good gap and the advantage blew out to just over 10 minutes rather quickly. Mark Cavendish’s Great Britain squad along with our Belorussian champion, Kanstantsin Siutsou controlled the gap from the front of the main bunch. It was a unique situation to have riders from our African Team really dictating the pace of the race from both ends.
As expected though the soaring temperatures and typical Qatari crosswinds would play a huge role in today’s race and the race defining moment came with still 175km to go. After a 80km trip up the Arabian Gulf, the main bunch turned back towards Doha and Great Britain and Belgium chose this exact moment to put the race into the gutter. Minutes later and the crosswinds had blown the race to pieces.
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