Tour of Turkey *spoiler*

Pross

Up there on the 'doping nationalities' stereotype chart I would suspect Bulgaria would rank quite highly!

Tusher

Iain, how on earth do you manage to find these sites? This one's a gem.

outsider78

I am so proud a Turkish team won a stage on a tour! (can't tell if they ever won anything before as I don't know)

FYI, Tour of Turkey is mostly aimed at sprinters, I guess this is due to government's efforts to boost tourism to Turkey, if you watch the stages, it almost looks like an advert that countries like Croatia, Greece, Macedonia puts it up on TV channels in summer (sea views, mountains, beaches, hotels etc.). They go along the coast, which is mostly flat. If they go all mountain, well there is not much to show for a average tourist is there

Today's stage was different though, it had a mountain top finish and suddenly whole race become much more exciting! (not a big fan on sprint finishes personally). Hope officials understand that there is more to cycling than using the race as a gimmick to market tourist resorts. Bit of marketing won't hurt as its a beautiful country but the tour will never be a popular enough to attract top class racers if they don't focus making the race better rather than anything else.

By the way weather was around 21-22C at sea level, its got to be cooler on higher altitudes. It wasn't too hot for anyone I think. You don't want to go there mid Jul or Aug be aware!

Abdoujaparov

Hmmm. Kinda lost excitement for that stage when it became clear Gabrovski (who?) was going to win that by over a minute. The group behind was clearly going some, busy shelling 95 per cent of the peloton and he just rode away at twice their speed! He could have cycled back down to them, attacked again and still won.

The (much smaller) time gaps between the rest of the top ten are mostly down to the vicious final ramps, but one and a half mins is a bit ridiculous. I'd love to cheer on the underdog, but come on.

frenchfighter

Last 14km

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=pl ... tbB-WB1b2g

rick_chasey

Renshaw wins.

afx237vi

Rick Chasey wrote:

Renshaw wins.

Did well to get over that hill. Not many riders left at the finish.

The Bulgarian dude was riding like a n00b towards the end.

inkyfingers

Rick Chasey wrote:

Renshaw wins.

Bet he's glad he isn't riding with Cav anymore, now gets the chance to target some of the really big races.

Tusher

Delighted for Renshaw. Just so chuffed for him.

The Kennington Kaiser

frenchfighter wrote:

Last 14km

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=pl ... tbB-WB1b2g

Brilliant. Garbovski looks like he's about 50! Gotta love the second comment on the youtube vid:

"This is what happens when you inject yourself with mutated cow blood."

frenchfighter

jibberjim

Grabovski looks to be losing it today, the break is nearly 11 minutes down the road with only 47k to go.

Duret will go into the lead almost certainly.

jibberjim

Maybe not, a load of other teams have started working - I suspect some money or favours has changed hands in the convoy to get the other teams to work.

frenchfighter

If it really is 11mins at 47km I'd be massively surprised if it was caught.

jibberjim

frenchfighter wrote:

If it really is 11mins at 47km I'd be massively surprised if it was caught.

There's no chance it'll be caught! highest placed guy in the break is just over 5 minutes down, so grabovski's team was completely failing to bring it down at all but now have a load of other teams helping and it's down to nearer 9 with 40km to go.

frenchfighter

Got it.

jibberjim

So it's now 4:13 with 20km to go - so 4:40 pulled back in the last 20km... even more teams now riding in the bunch. Argos now joining the effort.

frenchfighter

Bardet saying he had vertigo! which made him lose time at the end os Tuesday's stage:

http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/bardet- ... -of-turkey

frenchfighter

Andrea Di Corrado soloed to the 5th stage of the Presidential Tour of Turkey, attacking out of an escape group. The remains of the group crossed the finish line 37 seconds later, with second place going to Jonas Jorgensen (Saxo Bank) and third to Jerome Cousin of Europcar. The peloton had cut the gap from a high of nearly 15 minutes to a mere 1:35, with Matteo Pelluchi of Europcar winning the sprint of the peloton.

Ivaïlo Gabrovski of Konya Torku Seker Spor easily defended his overall lead. It was the first professional win for the first-year pro Di Corrado.

RichN95.

frenchfighter wrote:

On twitter, Matt Rendell, who is in Turkey, said the official winning margin was 0.0003 seconds

ddraver

...from http://www.thewashingmachinepost.net/

frenchfighter

Stage 6 Results
1 MODOLO, Sacha (COLNAGO - CSF INOX) 4:34:00
2 GOSS, Matthew Harley (GREENEDGE)
3 RENSHAW, Mark (RABOBANK)
4 HAEDO, Juan José (SAXO BANK)
5 TSATEVITCH, Alexey (KATUSHA)
6 ANDRIATO, Rafael (FARNESE VINI - SELLE ITALIA)
7 COLLI, Daniele (TEAM TYPE 1 - SANOFI)
8 VIGANO, Davide (LAMPRE - ISD)
9 COLEDAN, Marco (COLNAGO - CSF INOX)
10 JARC, Blaz (NETAPP)

General Classification after Stage 6
1 GABROVSKI, Ivaïlo (KONYA TORKU SEKER SPOR) 23:22:57
2 DYACHENKO, Alexsandr (ASTANA) + 1:33
3 ANDONOV PETROV, Danail (CAJA RURAL) + 1:38
4 PALOMARES VILLAPLANA, Adrian (ANDALUCIA) + 1:44
5 BARDET, Romain (AG2R LA MONDIALE) + 2:01
6 EFIMKIN, Alexander (TEAM TYPE 1 - SANOFI) + 2:23
7 GUILLOU, Florian (BRETAGNE - SCHULLER) + 2:29
8 BATTAGLIN, Enrico (COLNAGO - CSF INOX) + 2:58
9 GOLAS, Michal (OMEGA PHARMA-QUICKSTEP) + 3:02
10 ROUTLEY, Will (SPIDERTECH p/b C10) + 3:14

rebs

Goss is becoming quite the bridesmaid at this race

roypsb

Anyone else thought that the Eurosport co-commentator Brian Smith (think that's his name) has made very little comment on Gabrovski's performance, as if he's perhaps a bit suspicious? Whenever Kirby mentions Gabrovski, Smith seems to comment on something else. Or am I imagining it?

afx237vi

RoyPSB wrote:

Anyone else thought that the Eurosport co-commentator Brian Smith (think that's his name) has made very little comment on Gabrovski's performance, as if he's perhaps a bit suspicious? Whenever Kirby mentions Gabrovski, Smith seems to comment on something else. Or am I imagining it?

Dunno about Brian, but Carlton read out a Tweet during today's stage along the lines of "let's hope this guy's performance isn't too good to be true", which made me raise an eyebrow because commentators rarely go there. It's not their job to decide whether a guy is dodgy or not, so I don't blame them for skirting around the topic.

Art Vandelay

No Bio-passport for Conti teams and Gabrovski has had a couple of haemocrit level misdemeanours in the past.

28km to go with lead group 2.25 on the bunch. Live on Eurosport international.

Art Vandelay

Amazing finale!

jibberjim

Proving a good tour for the dopers... Wondered why the comms were not saying how easy Keisse had it, considering he managed to crash, drop his chain, get it back on again and still win.

blazing_saddles

Keisse: Falls off, chain off and still wins. What a finish!!!

majormantra

Blazing Saddles wrote:

Keisse: Falls off, chain off and still wins. What a finish!!!

That. Was. Epic.