April 25/11 10:13 am - Tour of Turkey: Stage 2

Posted by Editoress on 04/25/11
 

Results from today's Tour of Turkey won by Valentin Iglinskiy (Pro Team Astana).  Svein Tuft (Team Spidertech) was the top Canadian finisher in 45th, sametime.

SpiderTech Directeur Sportif Steve Bauer discusses the first two stages of Presidential Tour of Turkey:

The first two stages have evolved as expected. Each day has rounded out with full peloton bunch sprints, with the race's fast sprinters having top honours. We believe more of these sprints will take place throughout the week and this could be an asset to the team if SpiderTech powered by C10 manages to make the good General Classification breakaway/split of the Tour, which could emerge as the terrain gets tougher and riders begin to fatigue.

Team SpiderTech has not brought any of our fast finish men to Turkey, as they have opted to train hard for Tour of California.  Therefore the game plan is patience, stay cool and look for the tougher moments of the Tour to present opportunities for our men to attack.

"There will be one or two decisive breaks during this race where our team has to be sharp and strong. We have to create this break or follow it when we know it's 'the' breakaway. I know our guys are strong enough to contend with a great General Classification performance. We have to save our bullets to fire hard when it matters. For now, we are quiet," says Steve Bauer.

Note:  Canadian Cyclist will be at the Tour of Turkey for the final four stages of the race.

Valentin Iglinskiy creates a surprise on the Aegean sea side

For the second day in a row, the top sprinters have had to accept to be defeated by lesser known riders at the Presidential Tour of Turkey, as Valentin Iglinskiy from Kazakhstan imitated Andrea Guardini in Turgutreis at the expenses of Alessandro Petacchi, Tyler Farrar and Andre Greipel. The 26 year old from Astana scored a great success in Turkey after the overall win at the Tour of Hainan in China last year. He also took the lead on GC as Guardini got dropped on the final climb.

The riders were extremely motivated at the start of stage 2 in Ku?adası, where there was only one non-starter: Kevyn Ista (Cofidis) who suffered a saddle sore. The intense activity in the bunch created a few crashes and breakaways with Nicolas Edet (Cofidis), Thibaut Pinot (FDJ), Antonio Santoro (Androni), Hugo Sebastian Salazar Castañeda (Colombia), Eloy Ruiz Pinto (Andalucia) and Gabor Kasa (Manisa) trying their luck but they were brought back at km 10.

No one could stay at the front, as the speed of the bunch was too high in the crosswinds and the peloton split up in five pieces after 25 kilometres of racing. After 65 kilometres of an unceasing battle, the participants of the 47th Presidential Tour of Turkey finally managed to take it easy a little while four riders broke clear: Timon Seubert (NetApp), Juan Villegas (Colombia), José Luis Roldan (Andalucia) and once again Kasa who made Turkish cycling fans proud as they could realise the improvements of their continental teams at the same time as the growing success of the national TUR.
The quartet got an advantage of five minutes but it decreased as the chase was led by the teams of the top sprinters sharing the turns at the head of the bunch. Roldan insisted with 25km to go. At the entrance of Bodrum, Kasa pursued his day of glory with succeeding to Roldan in the lead. Kasa and Seubert were the two escapees who resisted the longest to the return. There were only nine kilometres left when Luca Barla (Androni Giocattoli) who had jumped away from the bunch in a climb passed them and tried his luck on his own. Nicolas Edet (Cofidis) and Oscar Gatto (Farnese Vini) also took some advantage over the bunch but couldn’t stay away.

The bunch sprint was inevitable and extremely spectacular in Turgutreis with a slightly downhill road with a head wind facing the riders. Iglinskiy was smart enough to follow Petacchi’s acceleration after being positioned at perfection by his Astana team. He preceded the Italian great sprinter and Farnese Vini’s Elia Favilli who didn’t have to escort Guardini as he usually does.
Mirac Kal from Konya Torku Seker Spor-Vivelo delivered the best result for a Turkish rider in a stage of the Presidential Tour of Turkey since the race became open to the world’s best pro cyclists in 2008. He finished ninth in stage 8 in 2009, racing for the national team, and gained one position coming eighth this time around.

Quotes from the top three riders

Valentin Iglinskiy (1st, Astana): “It’s very emotional to win here at the Tour of Turkey. Something fantastic happened at the finish today. I was following Petacchi and my Astana team helped me a lot for that. This is very good for me, it’s a very big success. I’ve believed in my strength. I thought it was possible to get this win but without my team, I’m not a good sprinter. Today I chose the correct position, yesterday, I didn’t. From now on, I want to go step by step and build my future in the big classics and the Grand Tours. To become a champion is my big dream.”

Alessandro Petacchi (2nd, Lampre-ISD): “I’ve opened my sprint too early. I haven’t understood the wind very well. I accelerated on the left side when Tyler [Farrar] did the same on the right but with such a strong head wind, it was too audacious. The one who took my wheel had a big advantage, in fact he won and I didn’t know him as a sprinter. I’m happy anyway to have tried and I’ve had a good sprint. This is actually my first good sprint for a while. I’ve had great feelings in the finale of the stage. It’s clear that the training I’ve done before the Giro isn’t what I need for winning right now. I’ve trained a lot in the hills but I haven’t done the efforts for the rhythm of sprinting. However, yesterday and today I’ve had confirmation of my good training but my results show that I need to race to find the rhythm.”

Elia Favilli (3rd, Farnese Vini-Neri-Sottoli): “This result was unexpected because I resumed racing just recently. We spoke with the directeur sportif and we wanted to work for Oscar [Gatto] but it went differently at the end. I’ve tried. Unfortunately I came out of the box a bit too late but I’m happy to finish in the top three. Andrea Guardini is a very strong sprinter but he didn’t make it over the last climb today but the most important is the team to keep performing.”

Report courtesy organization