Kruopis avoids crash to win stage two at Tour of Turkey

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Aidis Kruopis scored his first victory of the year for Orica GreenEdge as he survived a spectacular crash-marred finale at the end of stage 2 of the Tour of Turkey in Antalya. The 26-year-old Lithuanian managed to escape unhurt from the carnage and finally retained enough speed to score his most emphatic victory to date ahead of Italy’s Marco Coledan (Bardiani Valvole-CSF Inox) and Germany’s André Greipel (Lotto Belisol), who became the race leader on the eve of the queen stage. 

Mark Renshaw (Blanco) was the first man on the ground as he led Théo Bos with 600 metres to go. The Australian broke a collarbone, as did Belgium’s Jonas van Genechten who was pulling for Greipel, while Bos sustained lacerations to the skin on his elbow and a haematoma on his left hamstring.

“I saw a lot of riders around me falling down,” Kruopis said, describing the scene. “It’s very sad. But I managed to pass the guys. There were five guys before me and I started sprinting. I caught every one of them then I caught the last one [Coledan].

“Yesterday the team was working for Leigh Howard but we lost each other and today the team worked for me. Leigh put me in a good position, he brought me to the top ten and I did my job. I was lucky that I didn’t crash but you also need some skills to avoid crashes. I was lucky but I was also strong.”

The main breakaway of the day was formed after only five kilometers and included Clément Koretzky (Bretagne-Séché), Fabricio Ferrari (Caja Rural), Piotr Gawronski (CCC Polsat), Duber Quintero (Colombia), Junya Sano (Vini Fantini) and Ahmet Örken (Torku Seker Spor). After getting the green light from the bunch, they built up a gap of 2:30 within five kilometres and they had their maximum advantage of 6:20 by the 35km mark. The Argos-Shimano team of stage 1 winner Marcel Kittel maintained the deficit of the peloton at around five minutes prior to pulling them back with 15km to go.

In the meantime, Koretzky won the intermediate sprint in Manavgat (km 51) ahead of Sano and Gawronski while Örken, the great hope of Turkish cycling, kept his Torku Sekerspor team’s momentum by winning the Turkish Beauties sprint (km 81) at the ancient theatre at Aspendos to snatch the lead in that classification.

The only Turkish outfit in the race hold two distinctive jerseys as Mustafa Sayar retained his best climber’s red garment on his 25th birthday. The 20-year-old Örken, the European champion for omnium in the junior ranks two years ago, got exposure for 130 kilometres to highlight the significant improvements of Turkish cycling.

Japan’s Sano did his best to keep the breakaway alive but he was caught with ten kilometres to go. From there, the bunch gallop was inevitable on Konyaalti Boulevard alongside the Mediterranean in Antalya. “The crash just happened in front of me,” Greipel explained. “I don’t know exactly how I managed to stay on my bike with the feet out of the pedals but I just kept going. I was in a good position after the last corner. If it was a normal sprint, I would have had good chances of winning.”

Boosted by the confidence of having beaten Greipel, albeit in unusual circumstances, Kruopis is eyeing another success before the end the race and is also aiming to win a stage in Grand Tour, perhaps the Vuelta a España, this year. However, the 49th Presidential Tour of Turkey will enter a new phase with the queen stage finishing atop Gögübeli at Elmali after three first category climbs. The climbers will have their say while the sprinters will try and recover from the carnage.

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