Feb 8th, 10. Just as they did at the Santos Tour Down Under, Team Sky opened the Tour of Qatar with a win.  Edvald Boasson Hagen wears the yellow jersey after today's team time trial.

Team Sky were victorious in the 8.2km team time trial in very windy conditions today.   They finished the course just north of Doha in 9m41s.

It was the Norwegian Boasson Hagen who crossed the line first therefore he'll have the honour of wearing the leader's yellow jersey tomorrow.

Cervelo TestTeam had the second fastest time but were disqualified and incurred a 1min penalty after they were found to have had assistance during the race - unauthorised pushing among the riders.

"I spoke with Heinrich (Haussler) and Gabriel (Rasch) and they told me that the wind was coming from the right side and to avoid crashing into our team Heinrich was forced to touch Gabriel," said Cervelo Test Team sports director Jens Zemke on the team website. 

"It wasn't done in an effort to make a better time - it was solely done to avoid a crash. Though it was just Heinrich and Gabriel who were involved and not our whole team, nevertheless the commissar thought that this was enough of an infraction and penalised whole team."

With Cervelo TestTeam's penalty in place, Garmin Transitions moved up to 2nd, 8sec behind Team Sky with Team Saxo Bank in 3rd, +13sec.

Cervelo TestTeam weren't the only team to have a bad day. Team Milram's time trial specialist Niki Terpstra had a chain problem just a few metres from the start which disrupted his team's rhythm and cost precious seconds.

The defending champion, Tom Boonen, finished 22sec off the pace with his team QuickStep.

Trek Livestrong, the U23 team of Kiwi Jesse Sergent had their hopes of an upset dashed when they lost a couple of riders to the crosswinds early on. They finished 39sec behind the leaders but according to their twitters the team members are feeling upbeat about the days to come.

"TTT was tough today ... but it's done now and there is a lot more racing to be done in the next two weeks!" wrote Sergent.

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