Greipel scores again, Visconti congratulates Turkey

The Presidential Tour of Turkey enjoys the aggressiveness of race leader Giovanni Visconti who anticipated the bunch sprint in Finike. For the record, the winner was Andre Greipel for the fourth time this week but stage 6 was much more than a final gallop with young Italians Davide Cimolai and Manuel Belletti taking second and third positions respectively. The French Cofidis team set fire to the race until 800 metres to go.

It was a fast start after leaving Fethiye. Three riders managed to go away after nine kilometres: Christophe Kern (Cofidis), Vladimir Isaychev (Xacobeo-Galicia) and Frederik Wilmann (Skil-Shimano). They were joined by Arkaitz Duran (Footon-Servetto) and Yukihiro Doi (Skil-Shimano) but the Japanese went back to the peloton at km 38 due to a mechanical problem and also because his presence in the lead jeopardized the chances of success for the breakaway. Doi was only 2.46 down on GC in the morning.

Action was on in the category 1 climb following the passage of the town of Kaş when Cofidis put the hammer down despite having Kern in the front and without the input of former race leader Rein Taaramäe who was a non-starter today due to extreme fatigue. David Moncoutié and later Amaël Moinard and Rémi Pauriol caused some panic at the head of the bunch. Before regrouping, the peloton lost riders like Andre Greipel but the top eight riders on GC were watching each other closely.

Kern and Wilmann stayed away. Their effort was brilliant alongside the beautiful Mediterranean coast but they didn’t get paid off for their 185 kilometres of breakaway. “Wilmann was a bit weaker than me but he gave everything he had for the breakaway to succeed”, Kern fairly commented after taking the lead of the Turkish beauties sprints. “When we watched the road book prior to the stage, we thought there was a possibility to make it today as the final climb wasn’t as far from the finish as the previous days. Unfortunately, the head wind in the downhill condemned our initiative.”

The combined efforts of the HTC-Columbia and Colnago-CSF teams who took over from ISD-Neri in the chase led to another bunch sprint. But it was a thrilling finale as the turquoise jersey of Visconti emerged at the exit of the last curve at the exact same time it was game over for Kern 800 metres away from the finishing line. “When there is an opportunity to win, as a professional bike rider, I shouldn’t let it go”, Visconti commented. “At the 800 metres mark, I had in mind to pull the sprint for Oscar Gatto but I went faster than anybody else in the final curve, that’s how I put myself in a winning situation. It was very far for opening a sprint, it didn’t work at the end but it was a nice try. I also eyed the time bonus because my lead on GC isn’t that big and I would have liked to reward my team with a bit more comfort for the great job they’ve done again today.”

Visconti is two stages away from winning the 46th Tour of Turkey and looks likely to do it. “I’ll wait till the last two kilometres of the last stage for being confident”, he moderated. “Probably my rivals will try to attack me again tomorrow but fortunately, this is a shorter stage than today. I have more and more conviction that I can win this race because my team gets better every day.”

An enthusiastic Visconti was also full of praise for the country that hosts the event. “We were riding a bit too fast to fully appreciate the view today but I’ve admired magnificent landscapes alongside the Mediterranean”, he concluded. “Congratulations to Turkey!”