Bos wins crash-marred sprint

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Theo Bos (Rabobank) won the sprint of the first stage of the Tour of Turkey to become the first race leader. Matthew Goss (GreenEdge) was second in the sprint, which was marred by a huge crash shortly before the finish line. Daniele Colli (Team Type 1) took third, with Alessandro Petacchi (Lampre) in fourth.

“I still had Graeme Brown and Mark Renshaw with me, but when they came out of the lead, I thought it was still too early to go for the sprint.  When Goss and Lancaster of GreenEdge came past me, I could hook up eith thlem and I still had enough to pass Goss,” Bos said.

One hundred and ninety-four riders took to the start of the first stage in the beach resort city of Alanya. The course was eight laps of a 16.9km circuit course, which combined the beachfront with the city. Three riders took off directly from the start, and during the second lap, an eight-man group had been established.

Adrian Hegyvary (UnitedHealthcare), William Routley (SpiderTech), Albert Timmer (Argos-Shimano), Maxim Belkov (Katusha), Gabor Kasa (Salcano - Arnavutkö), Javier Ramirez (Andalucia), Frederique Robert (Lotto Belisol), and Adrian Kurek (Utensilnord-Named) built up a lead of up to 8:45, which had dropped to just over eight minutes by the time they finished the second lap.

Kurek was the first to drop off, drifting back to the peloton where the chase was being led by Farnese Vini and Omega Pharma-QuickStep. The chase was enough to bring the gap down to four minutes as they started the fourth lap, and at the half-way point, it was down to only 1:40.

The gap continued to fall and with 45km to go, only Ramirez and Hegyvary remained in the lead. But they too were caught with only 22km left in the stage.

Lampre took charge of things as the field entered the final lap, hoping to set up Petacchi's first win of the season, but as the finish line approached, all the sprinters' teams battled for the lead.

All the plans for the sprint were cast aside as a huge crash near the end involved about half the peloton. Bos went on to take the win and the first leader's jersey.

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