April 29/11 10:15 am - Tour of Turkey: Stage 6 - Updated

Posted by Editoress on 04/29/11
 

Results from the 6th stage of the Tour of Turkey won by André Greipel Omega Pharma - Lotto). Spidertech's Pat McCarty finished 13th in the sametime.

Change in Overall Leader on Stage 6

At the conclusion of stage 5 at the Tour of Turkey, the general classification looked pretty solid, with Garmin-Cervelo's Tom Peterson leading Cameron Wurf (Liquigas-Cannondale) by 27 seconds and Alexander Efimkin (TT1-Sanofi Aventis) by 29 seconds, with a couple of others under two minutes and the rest of the peloton at 11 minutes-plus.  In our video interview, Peterson said he was confident his team mates could support him for the overall, commenting "it would take some tragedies for us not to win'.

Guess what?  Tragedy indeed struck the Garmin-Cervelo team, which imploded on the final KoM climb of the day, leaving Peterson with only one supporting team mate as he watched Efimkin ride away with a front group to take the turquoise leader's jersey.  Andre Greipel (Omega Pharma-Lotto) easily took the small bunch sprint to win the 184 kilometre stage between Fethiye and Finike.

Stage six would be the final stage with some real climbing in it and some magnificent scenery in the final 50 kilometres as the race hugged the shore of the Mediterranean, before two final flat days for the sprinters.  Therefore, all the top teams were gunning for Garmin-Cervelo, and the attacks began early.  Nothing stuck until 50 kilometres into the stage, after the first KoM climb, when a group of ten broke clear, including SpiderTech's Pat McCarty.  None of the real danger riders were there, and six more non-danger riders bridged up shortly after to make a group of 16.

Garmin was riding tempo on the front with four riders, keeping the gap to two minutes for a long time before letting it creep out past three minutes.  But they started to crack on the final climb, and when the peloton split, with over 20 riders at the front, neither Peterson nor Wurf were there.

Efimkin was, with two strong team mates - Lazlo Bodrogi and Rubens Bertogliati - and this trio led the group up to the break.  With TT1 supported by Astana and FDJ, the group set out to put some serious time into Peterson.  Initially, Peterson's small group of ten were able to limit the damage to less than half a minute on his GC lead, but with Peterson and Wurf having only one team mate each in the chase, they began to crack.

The front group finished 2:19 in front of the Peterson group, which put Efimkin into the lead, Astana's Andrey Zeits second at 1:13 and Thibaut Pinot from FDJ third at 1:33.  Peterson dropped to 1:50, with Wurf now fifth at 2:17.  McCarty is the top SpiderTech rider, in 15th overall, with Svein Tuft the top Canadian in 36th, at 31:02.

Note:  See our video interviews with Pat McCarty and Steve Bauer for their take on the stage and the remainder of the race.

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