Tour of Turkey: Cavendish wins sprint in Antalya

Mark Cavendish (Etixx-QuickStep) made it two for two in the Presidential Tour of Turkey, winning the mass sprint of stage 2 in Antalya. He punctured a tire with five kilometres to go but relied on his teammates to keep him in good position to sprint, nonetheless, edging out Sacha Modolo (Lampre-Merida) and Nicola Ruffoni (Bardiani-CSF) to maintain his overall lead. 

"At a corner with about 5 kilometers to go my wheel went from me and I thought to myself 'that's not good' as I lost my balance," Cavendish said. "The wheel was spongy. It wasn't totally flat but it was a slow leaking puncture. I thought about stopping to get a new wheel, but we were already on our third guy of the train. If I stopped, we were one man short for Mark Renshaw. So I thought I'd give it a crack. I went easy for the final corners. I had confidence in my teammates. If they kept me in the front on the corners I'd be OK, and they did just that. They were really strong today and I was super impressed."

The stage, 182km with a start in Alanya and finish in Antalya, was marked by five-man break group. Luis Mas (Caja Rural), Federico Zurlo (UnitedHealthcare), Kevin de Mesmaeker (Novo Nordisk), Frederik Veuchelen (Wanty-Groupe Gobert) and Adrien Niyonshuti (MTN-Qhubeka) never had more than about a three-minute lead, and were caught again with 12km to go.

Ruffoni said it was difficult to follow the Etixx-QuickStep sprint train, but “When we arrived under the flamme rouge I was in a really good position just behind Cavendish. With 100 metres to go I tried to jumped out from his wheel but he was too fast, showing to be the strongest today too.”

How it unfolded

The flat second stage stayed mostly along the coastline, and was predestined for a long breakaway followed by a bunch sprint. The group of five formed quickly and got away about 20km into the stage. However, the peloton kept a wary eye on them, and the gap was never allowed to become too high. The sprinters’ teams led the chase, with Etixx-QuickStep keeping things under control

A crash with 40km to go saw several riders go down, including three from MTN-Qhubeka.

The gap gradually came down and with 12km, they were swept up by the field. The wide road leading towards the finish encourage many teams to try and bring their sprinters to the front, but the roads narrowed kilometre by kilometre, with some dangerous turns near the end.

With less than 2km to go, they took the final turn onto the closing straightaway. Etixx-QuickStep never gave up the lead, and still had three riders ahead of Cavendish going into the final kilometre. Mark Renshaw led Cavendish up to the 500-metre mark, and the sprinter launched himself with 200 metres to go. He took the win by a wheel length.

Cavendish will wear the leader's jersey into stage 3, which is the first climbing stage of the race. The 165.3km stage includes several climbs and a summit finale in Elmali, an 11.5km ascent (6-7%) with the steepest sections in the later part of the climb.

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