Garmin-Barracuda won the stage two team time trial at the Tour of Qatar – but Tom Boonen remains in the overall lead after his Omega Pharma-QuickStep squad finished second.
Garmin’s eight-man squad, led by American sprinter Tyler Farrar, clocked 12 minutes, 38 seconds on the 11.3km course to finish seven and nine seconds ahead of Omega Pharma-QuickStep and Team Sky respectively.
“I am very happy we won in Qatar!!” tweeted Gamin-Barracuda boss Jonathan Vaughters. “A bit less happy that it will be overshadowed by Contador news, but, hey, that’s life. Still happy we won!”
Boonen, who won stage one, remains in the leader’s jersey by just 0.03 seconds, while Farrar moves up to second in the general classification.
Mark Cavendish, who did not contest the finale on stage one having fallen ill ahead of the race, led Sky over the line. The world champion lies 20th overall, 12 seconds behind Boonen but will four sprinter-friendly stages remaining.
Tour of Qatar stage two
1) Garmin Barracuda – 12’38”
2) Omega Pharma-Quick Step +7″
3) Team Sky +9″
4) Katusha +9″
5) Liquigas Cannondale +13″
6) RadioShack-Nissan +14″
7) GreenEdge +16″
8) BMC Racing +16″
9) Lotto-Belisol +17″
10) Rabobank +17″
General classification
1) Tom Boonen – Omega Pharma-QuickStep – 3h 24m 07s
2) Tyler Farrar – Garmin-Barracuda +0″
3) Johan Van Summeren – Garmin-Barracuda +3″
4) Ramūnas Navardauskas – Garmin-Barracuda 3″
5) Thomas Dekker – Garmin-Barracuda +3″
6) Robbie Hunter – Garmin-Barracuda +3″
7) Nikolas Maes – Omega Pharma-QuickStep +9″
8) Davide Appollonio – Sky +10″
9) Francesco Chicchi – Omega Pharma-QuickStep +10″
10) Gert Steegmans – Omega Pharma-QuickStep +10″
