Greipel wins stage two of Tour of Turkey

Like in the past two years, Andre Greipel (Lotto-Belisol) resumed being a winner after the campaign in the Classics at the Presidential Tour of Turkey. He scored his seventh stage victory in Antalya in a bunch gallop at the end of stage 2 where he preceded Matt Goss (GreenEdge) who is the new overall leader after scoring the time bonus for the second place a second time in a row.

"I'd rather have the stage win than the jersey but I'm happy to be in the lead," Goss said. "We came here as a team to try and work out the lead out and that's going pretty well. Brett Lancaster did a fantastic job from 1km out but Andre got that jump and I couldn't shut that gap back down. It's only a matter of time until I get my first win of the year. I'm second again, so I'm close! I hope I'll be a winner soon. I'm getting better and better."

Greipel's acceleration with 200 metres to reach the finishing line was absolutely impressive. "The gorilla" therefore took his revenge from Sunday's first stage when he was held up by a massive crash in the peloton. "I was not really frustrated yesterday," the German explained. "Crashes happen but it's a great morale booster to be able to win as early as the second stage. The Tour of Turkey is a nice race, it is getting bigger every year and it is lucky to have all these great sprinters coming here to prepare for the Giro. It's not often that you have a race like this with most of the greatest sprinters in the world. I'm here to start my preparation for the rest of the season leading up to the Tour de France and it's a good start."

Greipel admitted that he took a break after Paris-Roubaix and didn't go on the bike for eight or nine days. "But you don't lose your speed," he said. "On the contrary, you're maybe a little bit fresher. And the stages are short so you're not too tired when you reach the finish."

Third placed Matteo Pelucchi rewarded his Europcar teammates for a great effort in curbing the day's break. "To finish just behind such great sprinters like Greipel and Goss can only make me happy," said the Italian who chose to follow Goss, but the two got boxed in until Lancaster made this massive effort to bring them back to the front. However, Greipel was one step above everyone else.

The pace was high from the start and the race rather jittery with several unsuccessful attempts at breakaways. It took 48 kilometres for the first real break to take shape with Alexandre Vinokourov (Astana), Laurent Pichon (Bretagne-Schuller), Paolo Locatelli (Colnago-CSF), Laszlo Bodrogi (Team Type 1-Sanofi) and Matteo Fedi (Utensilnord). The five reached the first sprint of the day, won by Vinokourov (km 54), with a 2:38 lead over the main bunch.

The maximum gap of five minutes was reached at the Turkish Beauty sprint of the day in Aspendos (Km 94), won by Bodrogi, who took over the classification's jersey. From then on the peloton launched a merciless chase and finally reined in the five escapees with five kilometres to go.

"It was nice to be in action again," Vinokourov told Cyclingnews. "I didn't plan this attack but I saw one rider moving to the front and I jumped on his wheel. It's important to feel the good condition coming back. I tried my luck in the very last kilometers of the last stage of Le Tour de Langkawi, but this is my first breakaway of the day really, it feels good.

"The atmosphere in our team is great after Maxim Iglinskiy's victory yesterday at Liège-Bastogne-Liège. Now it's up to our climbers to go for it."

Astana is among the favorites for stage 3 from Antalya to Elmali. For the first time, the Presidential Tour of Turkey features an uphill finish at the top of a 13-km climb described as the "Turkish Alpe d'Huez". Respectively fourth and eighth at Le Tour de Langkawi last month, Alexandr Dyachenko and Andriy Zeits who came second in the TUR last year will challenge defending champion Alexandre Efimkin from Team Type 1 and the young guns Esteban Chavez from Colombia-Coldeportes and Romain Bardet of Ag2r-La Mondiale.

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