April 27/12 9:23 am - Tour of Turkey: Stage 6, report, photos and results

Posted by Editoress on 04/27/12
 

Stage 6 of the Tour of Turkey was probably the last chance for rivals to unseat Ivailo Gabrovski (Konya Torku Seker Spor) from the leader's jersey, and they were not successful, as the Bulgarian withstood everything thrown at him.  Colnago-CSF Inox took their second successive stage win, this time in a sprint with Sacha Modolo relegating Green Jersey holder Matt Goss (GreenEdge) to second - his fourth second in six stages of racing.  Will Routley (SpiderTech) held onto his tenth spot in the overall standings, despite being dropped from the lead group for part of the stage.

The 179 kilometre stage - the longest of the race - featured more of the grinding up and down roads that are wearing down the field.  After heading out of Bodrum on a climb, the race turned to smaller, rough and dusty roads for much of the rest of the stage.

Multiple attacks in the first few kilometres ended when there was a crash at the back of the field, taking down about a dozen riders.  Leonardo Giordani (Farnese Vini) was the worst injured, with a reported broken collarbone, and Astana lost Assan Bazayev to the same crash.  SpiderTech's Hugo Houle was caught up in the same crash but escaped injury.  Goss took the lead in getting the peloton to slow for the crash victims to catch back on.

The real action began on the last KoM of the entire race, which split the field up.  Marco Bandiera (Omega Pharma Quick Step) took second on the climb to wrest the Climber's Jersey from Gabrovski.  Following the KoM there was an extremely sketchy descent on loose gravel and bumpy pavement and further rolling climbs that split the peloton into three distinct groups.

Gabrovski was safely in the front group, as were most of the top contenders, however, Europcar and Caja Rural both missed the split and chased hard to eventually reunit the field.

A break of three went clear while this was all happening, containing Maxim Belkov (Katusha), Michal Golas (Omega Pharma Quick Step) and Philip Deignan (UnitedHealthcare).  They reached a maximum of two minutes on the reunited field, before the attacks began happening on the final climb, pulling everything back together with eight kilometres to go.

Golas immediately attacked again, and was joined by Thierry Hupond (AG2R) and Enrico Battaglin (Colnago-CSF Inox).  Golas and Hupond were caught with a kilometre to go, while Battaglin came close to making it before being caught in the final 500 metres.  His team mate Modolo was easily the fastest, sweeping through the final curve in the last 75 metres to win in front of Goss and Mark Renshaw (Rabobank).

Tomorrow's short 124 kilometre stage offers no real climbs, and neither does the final finishing circuit in Istanbul on Sunday so, barring unforeseen circumstances, Gabrovski is likely to bring a win to a locally based team.

Photo gallery

Results from today's sixth stage in Turkey

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