Tour of Qatar **SPOILER**

The flat, dry, dusty and windblown sprint fest is almost upon us. It's not a race to match the Giro for sweeping vistas and a bunny hop up a kerb can win you the King of the Mountains.

Having said that there are a bunchful of sprinters to give us a taster of future battles.

Cav, Greipel, Appolonio, Degenkolb, Farrar, Robbie, Galymzynov etc, not to mention Sagan and Gilbert - oh, I just did!
The last couple of years we've always wondered and worried if Cav was going to 'train on' so I'm going to be more relaxed this year knowing that he starts the season slowly.

Thanks for the reminder Rich! I have subscribed to Eurosport Player so I will be able to watch the race this year.

Cav shouldn't be looking like too much of a slouch as he has MSR firmly in his sights.

The sprints will hopefully make up for the unremitting tedium of the rest of the stages... unless the wind wrecks the peloton.

Greipel is out with illness, gutting for him as he was going well down under.

Isn't the big test going to be whether or not Renshaw can outsprint Cav now he's not his lead out man?

He looked slightly off the pace at the TdU but it could be interesting.

Renshaw didn't look like he would be the big threat in the TdU.

Am I on your ignore list? Please don't answer this if I am

Its on British Eurosport 2 sadly not in Hd

No, not at all, I don't have an ignore list. For some reason I couldn't see your comment when I posted mine. No idea why, but it was happening a lot yesterday too.

Ha! I feel I've just exposed my lack of self esteem!

Mmm apart from Eurosport2 UK (Sky 411) it is also on Eurosport UK (Sky 410) isn't it or is 410's just a repeat of the one shown in 411*? It seems to be coming in dribs and drabs of 1 hour/2hour bits with no clue from the description if one is a repeat of another, and Record Series doesn't seem to record series at all...

* Description of 410 this Sunday 2pm says "Stage 5 of the 2012 Tour..."!!!

Apparently Cavs ill looks like he is gonna miss tomorrow

A spokesman from Team Sky stated that no final decision has been made on his participation in tomorrow's race but that he was likely to start.

That doesn't sound like a great idea! I know he's a pro, and he's young and strong but it can't be healthy to push yourself really hard that soon after an illness.

It does seem a little risky, but I'm sure Sky know what they're doing. He'll probably spend all day in the wheels taking it easy.

Cav twitted he was at the starting line an hour ago, and sky also stated he is going to race.

Time to fire up Eurosport player to see when the coverage is!