Doha Finals this weekend for Longines Global Champions Tour and Global Champions League

While the Netherlands’ Harrie Smolders will be crowned 2017 LGCT Champion Saturday after capturing the title at the previous stage in Rome, there will be a showdown among his fellow elite riders (17 of the top 20-ranked riders in the global Longines Rankings are in town for the event) for second and third place in the overall series.

Heading into Doha, Smolders had 278 points in the season’s standings, with Italy’s Lorenzo de Luca second (260) and Germany’s Christian Ahlmann just behind in third with 257. Rounding out the top six as the Final kicked off were Alberto Zorzi, Maikel van der Vleuten and Scott Brash (255, 247 and 245 respectively).

At this fifteenth and final stage of the Tour and parallel team-based Global Champions League, Smolders will thus be the first rider in the Tour’s history to wrap up the victory before the final stage had taken place. But the 37-year-old rider has not let up in the Middle East, taking second place in a 1.45 m class Friday.

Smolders is also trying to help his Hamburg Diamonds team hang onto its lead in the Global Champions League race for the title. As the teams arrived in Qatar, the team — Smolders, Eric Lamaze, John Whitaker, Piergiorgio Bucci and Jos Verlooy — was in the lead with 295 points, while second-place Valkenswaard United had 278.

With that lead, the Hamburg Diamonds just needed to finish in the top eight to claim the GCL title, according to organizers. But a difficult opening performance for Canada’s Lamaze on Uliano Vezzani’s course at Al Shaqab pushed them down the leaderboard heading into Saturday, with Smolders riding well yet again to salvage their chances. Everything remains up in the air for the podium as the 18 teams do battle down to the wire.