April 26/12 9:19 am - Tour of Turkey: Stage 5 report, photos and results

Posted by Editoress on 04/26/12
 

The Tour of Turkey finally saw a long break succeed, when six riders went clear some 15 kilometres on one of the longest stages of the race, a 178 kilometre run from Marmaris to Turgutreis.  At one point, there was a new virtual leader in the race, when the gap grew to nearly 15 minutes, but by the finish, the lone winner, Andrea di Corrado (Colnago-CSF Inox) was less than 90 seconds ahead of the peloton.  Will Routley (SpiderTech) remains the top Canadian, in tenth place overall.

The stage began with a long climb less than 500 metres into the stage - in fact, it was the descent into Marmaris that the riders had ridden down the previous afternoon.  Attacks began almost immediately, and riders started getting dropped off the back right away, as well.  One of those dropped was SpiderTech's Simon Lambert Lemay, but he managed to catch back onto the 'autobus' and came in the with the final bunch.

The first half of the stage was along a narrow, winding road beside the ocean - one of the most beautiful of the race so far, however, the roughness of the pavement led to many flats.

Finally, after approximately 15 kilometres, a group of six formed - di Corrado, Gruzdev (Astana), Jorgensen (Saxo Bank), Duret (Bretagne Schuller), Cousin (Europcar) and Balloni (Farnese Vini).  Hugo Houle (SpiderTech) chased, and got to within 25 seconds, but could not quite bridge and waited for the peloton.  The gap went up rapidly and, by the only KoM climb of the day, was nearly 14 minutes up, reaching a maximum of 14:50 after three hours of racing.  Duret was the virtual leader by this point

The group was working well, with the exception of Gruzdev, who began sitting on.  As the gap began to drop, Duret tried to keep it going, but a strong effort was being mounted from behind.  With 40 kilometres remaining, however, it was still 9:30, so things were beginning to look good for the leaders.

At 20 kilometres to go the gap was just over four minutes, and the first of the attacks in the break occurred, by Jorgensen.  He was chased down and Balloni went, followed by Cousin.  The two looked strong, but the others clawed them back - with Gruzdev still sitting on.  Then Cousins went at ten to go, was brought back, and di Corrado launched what would prove to be the definitive move, as everyone sat up on one of the climbs.

No one chased and di Corrado was on his way to his first pro win.  The rest of the break continued to hold off the peloton by 45 seconds, with Jorgensen taking second and Cousin third.

There were no changes in any of the jerseys.

Photo gallery

Results from the 5th stage of the Tour of Turkey

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