Team Sky put in a solid showing on stage four of the Tour of Qatar but it was Francesco Chicchi who emerged victorious by out-sprinting Theo Bos in a blistering finale on the Al Khor corniche.

The Liquigas star tucked in behind Bos as the entire peloton made their way towards the finish line and burst left out of the Cervélo TestTeam rider's slipstream before hanging on bravely for the win.

A dejected Bos dropped away in the final metres leaving team-mate Heinrich Haussler to take second, with Saxo Bank's Juan Jose Haedo in third.

Russell Downing had fought his way to the front of the peloton with four kilometres remaining before Edvald Boasson Hagen led home the squad in 17th position.

Ian Stannard (29th) and Juan Antonio Flecha (62nd) joined Boasson Hagen in the leading bunch and were awarded the same time as Chicchi.

Earlier in the stage, Martin Kohler (BMC), Jesse Sergent (Trek Livestrong) and Sep Vanmarcke (Topsport Vlaanderen) had broken free and held off the peloton for most of the race until they were finally swamped with 13.5km to go.

Wouter Mol (Vacansoleil) has retained the leader's golden jersey and extended his lead over Geert Steurs (Topsport Vlaanderen) to 15 seconds. Tom Boonen (Quick Step) had a quiet day after Tuesday's stage win and remains one minute and 55 seconds off the pace in third.

Working together

After the race, senior sports director Scott Sunderland admitted the team's tactics had not quite gone to plan but he was happy with the way the riders had worked together throughout the day.

He said: "The boys did a good job, they were together most of the way but then just got a couple of gaps between them at the end.

"In this type of a race the objective is to have all seven riders bringing Edvald into the best position during the closing stages, but we just didn't quite do that today.

"Lars-Petter, Geraint and Ian dropped Edvald off in the wheels from Tom Boonen but unfortunately Boonen wasn't quite in the position that he should have been and the end result was that we weren't really up there for the top places.

"But it was good. I think the boys are just getting a step further every day here.

"We've brought a relatively young team and although we've got the horsepower and the ability to punch out the big watts, we just need a little bit more cohesion.

"I'm incredibly happy with that - it's very, very promising. Morale is super-high too."