Viviani gets a big win in Antalya

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Elia Viviani (Liquigas) topped off a week of promising results by finally netting a stage win on the penultimate day of the Tour of Turkey. The Italian just managed to hold of Giovanni Visconti (ISD-Neri) to take home the victory after a massive pile-up disrupted the lead-out of HTC-Columbia in the finale.

It was the second win of the year for the first year professional, who also won a stage in the Vuelta a Cuba in February.

The fall was enough to deny Greipel the points classification jersey, as Visconti overtook the German with his second place on the day.

The short 114km stage from Finike to Antalya saw the day's breakaway escape at kilometre 10, with five riders going clear in a bid to foil the sprinters.

Adriano Malori (Lampre-Farnese Vini), Gustavo Rodriguez Iglesias (Xacobeo Galicia), Aristide Ratti (Carmiooro NGC), Giairo Ermeti (De Rosa - Stac Plastic) and Cheng Ji (Skil - Shimano) worked well together but maintained a lead of little more than two minutes.

The group survived the day's biggest difficulty, a category 2 climb at Kumluca, won by Malori.

The Colnago-CSF Inox-led peloton managed to whittle the lead down to less than a minute at the second sprint bonus, but then decided the catch would come too soon and let up on the gas allowing the gap to go up to 1:20.

The five men worked in perfect cooperation against a slowly diminishing lead until the 20km to go mark when Ji attacked in a rather premature bid for solo victory.

The Skil-Shimano rider looked to spice up an otherwise predictable stage finish, but the other four men weren't about to let him get away.

As the gap fell to 40 seconds, Ji was reeled back in only to see Ermeti make a short-lived move.

The aggressions only served to further drive the nail into the breakaway's coffin as the follow cars were pulled out of the ever shrinking gap as the race hurlted along the coastal road toward the finish.

A small climb with 16km to go saw Rodriguez Iglesias and Ratti drop anchor and head back to the peloton while Ji, Ermetti and Malori pushed on in a seemingly futile effort. Yet the trio, even without the contributions of Ji, managed to pull the gap back out to a minute with 13km to go.

Now with help from ISD-Neri, the Colnago CSF-Inox boys kept whittling at the gap, bringing it down to 40 seconds as the kilometres clicked down into the single digits.

With a long, straight, dead-flat road along the coast there was never really any hope for the trio to hold off the inevitable, but Ji wasn't quite ready to say die.

With 6km to go the Chinese rider, who had been a passenger in the breakaway for 10km, launched another attack much to the irritation of his two companions.

Ermeti and Malori brought him back with ease, and immediately Malori countered and Ermeti hesitated, then waited for Ji to throw in the towel before jumping up to the Lampre rider.

With Ji jettisoned, the duo got back to working together to hold their slim 15 second lead. However, the sprinters teams had timed this one to perfection and with three kilometres to go the determined duo had to admit defeat.

As the catch was made, HTC-Columbia hit the front for points leader Andre Greipel, blowing past Ermeti and Malori like a freight train. All seemed to be going in favour of the speedy German until the last turn when greasy roads in the sweeping right hand bend caused a massive pile up that took out the entire HTC-Columbia train as well as most of the Colnago CSF-Inox riders and a number of spectators, allowing a small group to power to the finish.

The crash benefitted Giovanni Visconti, who solidified his overall lead by getting past the wreck, but the Italian just missed his third stage win, getting pipped by Liquigas' Elia Viviani on a bike throw at the line.

Everyone survived the crash without major injury, and as it happened inside the final kilometre the general classification remained largely unchanged as all riders were given the same time as the winner.

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