In hindsight, the hype surrounding Edvald Boasson Hagen was probably at its zenith during his first appearance in the early-season races in the Gulf back in 2010. Newly arrived at the nascent Team Sky, he clocked up three stage wins at the Tours of Qatar and Oman, and, were it not for an ill-timed comfort break in Oman, he would have claimed overall honours there to boot. The future belonged to him alone.
Then as now, Eddy Merckx was part of the organisation on each race, and it is difficult to find a contemporary report that didn’t draw an explicit comparison between the Cannibal and the man they used to call 'the new Eddy'.
"I think that he's the best young rider we have in cycling at the moment," Merckx told Cyclingnews at the time.
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Six years on – five of them in the colours of Team Sky – it is undeniable that Boasson Hagen has not lived up to the lofty expectations foisted upon him as a youngster, eventually slipping into a supporting role in the Spring Classics as well as the Grand Tours.
Yet if Boasson Hagen's first season at MTN-Qhubeka – now Dimension Data – in 2015 was somewhat mixed, his fine run of form in the tail end of the campaign suggested that the Norwegian still has plenty more to offer. His displays at the Tour of Qatar this week have continued that trend.
After performing impressively in the service of Mark Cavendish during the wind-buffeted opening two stages in Qatar, Boasson Hagen moved himself into the overall lead on Wednesday by turning the clock back to 2010 with a dominant victory in the 11-kilometre time trial at Lusail.
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