Tour of Turkey: Viviani beats Cavendish on stage 5

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It was Elia Viviani (Cannondale) who cracked the Omega Pharma-QuickStep sprint hegemony in the Tour of Turkey today by beating Mark Cavendish into second and Kristian Sbaragli (MTN-Qhubeka) into third.

The top of the overall classification remained unchanged at the 183km stage finish in Turgutreis: Rein Taaramäe (Cofidis) retains a six second lead over Adam Yates (Orica-GreenEdge), and Romain Hardy (Cofidis) is a further 38 seconds back. After joining a nine-man break, Marc de Maar (United Healthcare) scooped enough points at two primes to wrestle the King of the Mountains jersey from Taaramäe

In the finale, Viviani's team-mate Cameron Wurf led the peloton over the final ascent, with Mark Renshaw, Alessandro Petacchi, Mark Cavendish and Viviani latched on his wheel. As Renshaw pulled over 200m from the line to allow Cavendish through, Viviani had time and space to come around the Manxman to take the win - four years after he first won a stage in the Presidential Tour of Turkey as a first year pro.

In beating Cavendish – who already has three stages to his name and retains the sprinter's green jersey – Viviani said it had been a "fantastic day" that confirmed his rising form ahead of the Giro d'Italia, his main goal of the year.

"It's very special to win here as it was the first place I won as a pro," Viviani said afterwards.

"Today was a special day for me because the course was harder and in previous days Cavendish's train was unbeatable. Yesterday I was a bit scared to take any risks because the Giro is coming soon and that's my main goal of the year," he added.

How it unfolded

The day's break escaped early on the tough grinding climb out of Marmaris. Matthias Krizek (Cannondale), Nicola Boem (Bardiani-CSF), Fabricio Ferrari (Caja Rural), Lachlan Norris (Drapac), Dennis Van Niekerk (MTN-Qhubeka), Marc De Maar (UnitedHealthcare), Nico Sijmens (Wanty-Groupe Gobert), Mirko Tedeschi and Matthia Pozzo (both Neri Sottoli) who was there to defend his Turkish Beauties white jersey competition.

After 50km the break's lead was approaching its maximum gap at four minutes, which briefly made Ferrari the virtual overall leader. De Maar, on the hunt for the King of the mountain jersey ked the group over the stage's two categorised climbs to take enough points to lead the competition.

However at 35km the race reached its tipping point and the sprinters' teams, with Omega Pharma Quickstep at the fore, began to put the pressure on the adventurers.

Working well together, the break, which had dropped De Maar and Tedeschi, made it to the Turkish Beauties sprint at 173km with just under a minute of its advantage remaining. Pozzo successfully added to his points jersey tally by crossing the line first. However on the undulating run in on broad open roads, the break was eventually swallowed, despite a spirited resistance from Niekerk and Kreizek to hold off the peloton.

With 5km to go and yet a another hill Marco Canola (Bardiani-CSF), Mirac Kal (Toku-Sekerspor) and fourth on GC, Merhawi Kudus (MTN-QHubeka) launched an attack, and though they built a 10 second lead it stood little chance of success on the rapid stage finale.

Wurf led the peloton over the final climb with a truncated Omega Pharma-QuickStep train in tow. Viviani lurked on Cavendish's wheel. First Petacchi kept the peloton taught into the final straight before Renshaw maintained Cavendish's position on the right of the road. But as Renshaw pulled right with 200m to let Cavendish through, it gave Vaviani ample time to come out of the Manxman's slipstream and claim his second win of the season.

Tomorrow's stage 6 will carry the riders 183km from Bodrum to the bottom of the steep climb to Selcuk. Second on GC, Adam Yates said he will try to attack race leader Taaramäe there though said the Estonian would be a hard man to beat.

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