page_title: 2009 Cervélo TestTeam season
section_title: Stage races
hierarchical_section_title: 2009 Cervélo TestTeam season / Stage races
caption_attribution_description: Français&#160;: Gent-Wevelgem 2009&#160;: Brett Lancaster au mont Kemmel
context_page_description: The 2009 season for the Cervélo TestTeam, its first, began in February with the Tour of Qatar and ended in October with the Giro di Lombardia. Though they applied for UCI ProTour status after their formation, the team competed in 2009 as a UCI Professional Continental team with wildcard status. This means that although they were not automatically invited to UCI ProTour events, they were eligible to be invited. Despite not being a ProTour team, they effectively competed at the highest level available in the sport - seventeen of the twenty-four UCI World Ranking events invited the team, including all three Grand Tours.
  The team formed for the 2009 season after their title sponsor, Cervélo, was outbid to remain the bicycle frame sponsor of Team Saxo Bank. The owners of the company wanted to remain at the highest level of pro cycling, and formed the TestTeam. The team's leader is 2008 Tour de France winner Carlos Sastre, who was one of the first riders to join the team.
  Cervélo TestTeam established itself as a strong classics team in its first year of existence, with three victories and seven other podium finishes in the spring season.
context_section_description: The first race of the season, and thus in the history of Cervélo TestTeam, was the Tour of Qatar. Though the race's general classification was won by Tom Boonen, Cervélo  was quite successful in the event as well. Roger Hammond won the second stage, into Al Khor Corniche, gaining the golden jersey as race leader in the process. It was seen at the time, and attributed by Hammond, as having been a total team effort. With four top-five finishes in the Tour of Qatar, Haussler won the event's points classification and was also the best young rider. Behind Tour of Qatar winner Boonen in the event's final general classification were five Cervélo riders second through sixth, giving the team a convincing victory in the team classification. The next stage race in which the team got a victory was the Tour of California, with Hushovd winning a mass sprint finish in the third stage, after Cervélo's leadout train successfully outmaneuvered Team Columbia–High Road's. Haussler took two stage wins later in the month at the Volta ao Algarve.
  In March, Haussler got a stage win in Paris–Nice, winning a mass sprint in Stage 2. The win briefly gave him the lead in the points classification, as he wore the green jersey in the following stage. The team next took stage wins in the Volta a Catalunya, which was concurrent to the Giro d'Italia. Hushovd, who had chosen to skip the Giro in order to better focus on the Tour de France, won the Stage 1 time trial and a mass sprint finish to Stage 6. He was notably defeated, however, in a sprint finish to Stage 5 by an unheralded rider from Team Katusha, Nikolay Trusov.
  In August, Jeremy Hunt won a stage in Danmark Rundt, while Roger Hammond finished on the event's final podium, in third. Though the team did not win any stage in the Vuelta a Burgos, they were the only to finish with two riders (Íñigo Cuesta and Philip Deignan) in the top ten overall. After finishing second in the first stage of the Tour du Limousin, Xavier Florencio maintained his high positioning and finished on the event's final podium in third. A strong squad, headed by the team's most prolific winners Hushovd and Haussler, was sent to the Tour du Poitou-Charentes. Brett Lancaster took third in the stage 3 individual time trial, to move into second overall, and held that position through the conclusion of the race. Hushovd and Haussler took back-to-back stage wins to close out the event, with Hushovd's stage 4 win coming the same day as the stage 3 time trial, just hours later. In the Tour of Missouri in September, Hushovd won the mass sprint finish to stage 3, becoming the only rider on the season to defeat Mark Cavendish in a group sprint on two occasions. The victory had been achieved by a change in tactics from the previous flat stages – instead of a proper leadout, members of Hushovd's train instead made repeated attacks in the race's final two kilometers. That, along with the finish's rolling profile, gave Hushovd his winning advantage, and the stage win briefly gave him the overall race lead. Despite a surprising defeat to Philippe Gilbert in a sprint finish to the race's concluding stage, Hushovd won the Tour of Missouri's points classification. The team did not get any more stage wins on the season, but Hammond finished on the final podium at two events, the Tour of Britain and Franco-Belge.
  The team's success was not as frequent in short stage races as it was in one-day races; they sent squads to the Tour de Langkawi, Tirreno–Adriatico, the Vuelta a Castilla y León, the Vuelta al País Vasco, the Tour de Romandie, Bayern-Rundfahrt, the Tour de Suisse, the Ster Elektrotoer, the Giro del Trentino, Tour of Austria, the Brixia Tour, and the Tour of Ireland, but did not obtain a notable result in any of them.
caption: Brett Lancaster, taken during Gent–Wevelgem.
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