Valentin Iglinskiy prevails over Petacchi

As Alexandre Vinokourov eyes retirement and looks for up-and-coming Kazakh riders to build the future of Astana, Valentin Iglinskiy put his hand up after winning stage 2 in the Presidential Tour of Turkey. The 26-year-old Astana rider outsprinted no less than Alessandro Petacchi (Lampre-ISD), Tyler Farrar (Garmin-Cervélo) and André Greipel (Omega Pharma-Lotto) while stage 1 winner Andrea Guardini (Farnese Vini-Neri Sottoli) got dropped on the final climb.

The younger brother of Maxim Iglinskiy is therefore the new race leader.

"It's very emotional to win here at the Tour of Turkey," Iglinskiy said. "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."

Obviously, this win came as a surprise for him as well. "I didn't know him as a sprinter," admitted runner-up Petacchi.

The youngest Iglinskiy scored the eleventh victory of his international career. He was guided by Vinokourov to the overall win at the Tour of Hainan in China at the end of last year, but beating most of the fastest sprinters in the world was something special for him.

"Yesterday I didn't chose the correct position for sprinting but today I did," Iglinskiy said. He was echoed by Petacchi who said: "The one who took my wheel had a big advantage."

The stage finish in Turgutreis featured a slightly downhill road with a headwind facing the riders. Farrar opened the sprint on the right side of the road and Petacchi reacted by doing the same on the left but the Italian was passed by a rocket from Astana that many believed was Allan Davis.

Although he would have been happy to celebrate the ANZAC day by an Australian win in Turkey, the bronze medallist of the last world championship took a lesson from the sprint on stage 1 and opted for leading his Kazakh teammate out. It proved to be a successful move.

Favilli was an unexpected third placed rider. He didn't have to escort Guardini anymore and the second sprinter of Farnese Vini, Oscar Gatto, had also spent his energy with a solo attack in the final kilometres preceding the mass sprint. "Most important is for the team to keep performing," Favilli said. "I've tried to win. Unfortunately I came out of the box a bit too late but I'm happy to finish in the top three."

Even though he was dominated by a less famous sprinter than him, Petacchi was positive after the finish. "This is actually my first good sprint for a while," he told Cyclingnews. "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."

Stage 2 was very fast with plenty of attacks and a couple of crashes during the first hour and half of racing until Timon Seubert (Team NetApp), Juan Villegas (Colombia Es Pasion - Cafe De Colombia), José Luis Roldan (Andalucia Caja Granada) and Gabor Kasa (Manisaspor) successfully escaped after 65 kilometres.

Kasa and Seubert were the two escapees who resisted the longest from the original four-man break. There were only nine kilometres left when Luca Barla (Androni Giocattoli) jumped away from the peloton on a climb, passed them and tried his luck on his own, but the mass sprint proved inevitable.

A different scenario is expected for stage 3 as there are usually some GC riders entering into the action before the finish in Marmaris.