The finish of stage 2 of the Tour of Qatar was a horrifying picture; Graeme Brown swerved in the sprint finish, taking out Predictor-Lotto's Tom Steels who sprawled full-length on the Doha street in the middle of the whole onrushing peloton. Miraculously all riders were all able to avoid him, but the damage was already done. He was able to get back on his bike and ride to the team bus, with unbelievable quantities of blood streaming down his face.

The Belgian emerged later from the Doha hospital to report a broken collarbone, six stitches in his head and any amount of skin scraped off. At that time, he didn't blame Brown for what happened. "That's the way it is in the sprint, these things happen," he was quoted as saying.

But by the time he got back to the team hotel, things had changed. All of the teams are staying at the same hotel and eating together in the same restaurant. According to Robert Förster of Gerolsteiner, Steels went up to Brown, showed him his broken collarbone and spoke his mind, calling the Australian, among other things "a Kamikaze." According to Sportwereld.be, Steels yelled at him, "You f**king idiot! It's always the same with you!"

"Brown didn't react," Förster wrote on his website, robert-foerster.de. "Steels was shouting as loud as he could, 'Go home!' At the same time another rider stood up, clapped and yelled, too, 'Go home!' Then the room went crazy, everybody stood up and yelled 'Go home!'"

Steels, at least, will be heading home early, to have the broken collarbone operated on. His mechanic reported that the head wound had been caused by the helmet, which broke into eight pieces.

"This is enormously frustrating," Steels summarized. He hopes to be back in the saddle training in five days.