Blazin' Saddles: FDJ make history as Mark Cavendish holds on in Qatar

Gravitational waves were made in Catalonia on Thursday when a French team won a team time trial for perhaps the first time since Chris Froome ate sliced bread.

While a load of bespectacled boffins were explaining just how three suns' worth of mass had been turned into energy to create ripples in the fabric of space-time, another one of the world's biggest unanswered questions – namely, when will anyone French do well in a race against the clock – was answered with panache by Marc Madiot's men.

It was truly a ground-breaking occasion as FDJ crossed the line just milliseconds faster than Astana to win the opening 5.5km ITT of the cat 2.1 La Mediterraneenne race.

Of course, the inevitable jokes soon came thick and thin – and, despite appearances, not only by people sharing a first name with a comedy cartoon cat...

Quickly, folk were scratching their heads as to when a French outfit last won a team time trial. For some, it seemed like an entire bygone era ago.

Soon the answer seemed to be 2001 when the Credit Agricole team of Christophe 'Stealth' Moreau had managed to win a mammoth 67km race against the clock back in stage 5 of the Tour de France – bettering the US Postal team of eventual race 'winner' Lance Armstrong by a huge 1min26sec in Bar-le-Duc.

But no! It then emerged that the same (albeit different) Credit Agricole team had won the ITT of La Mediterraneenne a decade ago in 2006 – pipping, yes, the FDJ team of Bradley Wiggins by the slenderest of margins over the 18km course.

Riding alongside Wiggo that day for the second-placed outfit was dependable Frenchman Matthieu Ladagnous who, a decade later, would don the leader's yellow jersey after crossing the line in pole position for Madiot's winning FDJ team.

Cue frantic celebrations and the inevitable podium selfie by a cluster of riders who never felt they would reach such heady heights in their careers.

Perhaps someone should tell the lads that the win doesn't look quite so good when Direct Energie's third place is taken into consideration...

Either way, an emotional Madiot – himself experiencing a TTT win for the first time in his managerial career – was quick to congratulate not only his riders but the team's new secret weapon: a fleet of Aerostorm time trial bikes made by manufacturer Lapierre.

Sadly, one of Twitter's trivia kings was on hand to put a swift dampener on what looked like to be an unprecedented moment. Yes, it had not been a whole decade since a French team made waves by filling such a black hole, but instead less than a year.

Meanwhile, down on the Arabian Peninsula it was something of an Anglo-Norwegian love-in as Mark Cavendish and Alexander Kristoff went shoulder to shoulder in the Qatari desert.

While Cavendish was unable to repeat his opening day stage-winning antics, the Manxman was able to deliver the first overall stage race win for new team Dimension Data – largely in part to a double puncture suffered by team-mate Edvald Boasson Hagen.

Boasson Hagen had moved into the race lead after beasting the stage 3 individual time trial but conceded the gold jersey after coming a cropper in the last 8km of stage 4, won by fellow Norwegian Kristoff.

Katusha's Kristoff won two more stages – including a narrow photo finish in stage 5 – but was unable to dethrone Cavendish at the top of the overall standings.

To finish, a few conclusions from this, the second of three UCI desert races (behind Dubai Tour and ahead of next week's Tour of Oman).

Katusha are the peloton's best dressed. With their new classy red threads, the Russian team – for all their troubles – win this hands down. Even if Kristoff tends to be all arms-up these days...

We shouldn't necessarily read too much into Kristoff's bettering of Cavendish. As has been argued before, Cavendish was always going to enter this season slowly after a busy winter on the track. The Dimension Data train has yet to gel and will only improve with Bernie Eisel back in the frame. And when an isolated Cav did finish a lowly sixth in stage 4, it was only because both Mark Renshaw and Tyler Farrar had dropped back to help out Boasson Hagen after his flat.

Van Avermaet is back to his best. The proof? A couple of fourth place finishes was capped by the Belgian's runner-up spot in stage 4 as the BMC rider finds his customary level ahead of the spring classics.

Qatar need to budge if they want their race to survive. Only eight WorldTour teams were present with the likes of Sky, Etixx and Tinkoff all sitting out. In the case of Etixx, not so much sitting out as outlawed. Not that these teams will be too concerned: the shoddy TV arrangements means no one without BeIN sports gets to watch the race, so sponsors can hardly be happy. Food for thought for the race organisers.

Three letters can make all the difference. Abbreviations are never the most inspired when it comes to nicknames, but all that changes when you chuck a rogue 'the' in front...