Tempers flare during Qatar finale

An altercation with RadioShack-Nissan rival Robert Wagner only motivated Brown to help deliver his compatriot Mark Renshaw to third place in what was a chaotic bunch sprint finish.

Brown was fuming at the end of the 120.5km stage, which concluded with 10 laps of a 6km finishing circuit, after the incident that he says arose from a miscommunication.

“Wagner punched me in the face with about two laps to go crossing the finishing line,” Brown said.

“He was coming back through the bunch, we were moving up, another guy was on the left and I said, watch out and he (Wagner) thought I was talking to him. He told me to get lost and hit me.”

Road world champion Mark Cavendish also had words with rivals at the finish after he touched wheels and crashed within the final 250m.

The crash happened behind defending tour champion Renshaw who finished 13th overall and one minute and 28 seconds behind winner Tom Boonen (Omega Pharma - Quick Step).

“There’s a lot of guys taking risks because there’s only three teams (four after the final stage) that have won here so there’s pressure from all of the directors to do well,” Renshaw said.

“I think the tempers always flare because it’s so dangerous. Nobody wants to crash that’s why everyone gets so wound-up. There was a lot of adrenaline out there.”

The race doubled as Renshaw’s first international hit-out with Rabobank with whom he is making the transition from world’s best lead-out man to marquee sprinter this season.

The 29-year-old finished the tour with only five teammates after Coen Vermeltfoort crashed out in the first stage and Tom Leezer later abandoned due to illness.

Renshaw says he felt pressure to perform in the sprinter-friendly stage race with the Dutch outfit he is more or less starting from scratch with.

“We have our general manager here, we have a good team so we’re expected to do well,” he said.

Renshaw has not brought colleagues with him to Rabobank unlike former HTC-Highroad fellows Cavendish and Matt Goss who are already familiar with some of their Sky and GreenEDGE teammates, respectively, having ridden with them as teammates at some point before.

But the two-time Giro d’Italia team time-trial stage winner Renshaw has taken formative steps at both the Tour Down Under and Qatar toward building a cohesive unit.

“I think we’ve got the potential to be up there,” he said.

“We’ve learnt a lot this week in regards to the team and riding together. I’m only new on the team so I have to get their trust and it seems they’re willing to really learn and work hard. The best thing we’ve taken away is the team work. We didn’t get a win but I think we came pretty close.”

Brown has worked well with Renshaw thus far and is hopeful he can play a crucial role in assisting the latter to stage success throughout the year.

“He’s the best lead-out man in the world and I’m trying to take that position so hopefully I can learn a lot from him,” Brown said.

“(We’ve) gone from a GC/classics team to trying to make a sprint team, there’s bound to be mistakes but you’ve got to learn from your mistakes.”

Renshaw will now turn his focus to Kuurne-Brussel-Kuurne (February 26) and Paris-Nice (March 4-11) whilst Brown is set to start the Tour of Oman from next week.

Twitter: @SophieSmith86

Sophie Smith is in Qatar as a guest of Amaury Sport Organisation