Bennett takes back-to-back wins in Tour of Turkey

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Sam Bennett (Bora-Hansgrohe) took his second straight victory at the Tour of Turkey, extending his race lead in the process. Bennett had a clear advantage as he crossed the line more than two bike lengths' ahead of Edward Theuns (Trek-Segafredo) with Riccardo Minali (Astana) in third place.

Trek-Segafredo looked to control the final kilometre to set up Theuns, but Bennett muscled his way onto their train after forcing Manuel Belletti (Wilier Triestina) out of the way. Bennett was on the wheel of Theuns as the Belgian was shown a clear road to the line when the last of his teammates peeled off. As it had been the day before, Bennett had a significant amount more speed than his rivals, and there was little they could do to stop him racking up another victory.

The longest stage of the 2017 Tour of Turkey meant a pre-lunch start in Kumluca for the peloton. The late crash on stage one meant that there would be three riders missing from the bunch with Justin Jules and Hector Saez failing to finish, while Alexander Porsev was a non-starter.

Unusually for stages of this distance, it took some time before the day's breakaway began to form with several riders trying their hand before a move finally stuck after 20 kilometres of racing. As would be expected, the riders from the Turkish national team were keen to get out front and it was Onur Balkan, who was in the break on stage 1, that broke the stalemate. He was joined by Mirco Maestri of Bardiani CSF.

The pair had four minutes on the bunch when Alfonso Murilo (Soul Brasil) decided that he wanted a piece of the action. Maestri would be thankful for the extra company as Balkan sat up after taking the points at the Turkish Beauties sprint after 59 kilometres. A crash in the bunch meant the end of the race for Gazprom-Rusvelo's Sergei Chernetskiy and the Russian would be taken to hospital with a suspected concussion.

Chernetskiy's crash was a rare thing of note in a stage that averaged barely over 30kph over the whole stage. The intermediate sprint also provided a small bit of action as Diego Ulissi (UAE Team Emirates) finished third to give himself some crucial bonus seconds for the overall classification.

Ultimately, however, the riders in the peloton were keen to save their legs for the challenging uphill finish. This meant that Maestri and Murilo were allowed to dangle out front for much longer than the breakaway had been the day before. Where the leaders had been caught with more than 30 kilometres remaining on day one, the pair held out until with 12 kilometres remaining.

The teams were in colour order in preparation of the sprint but there was little impetus in the bunch until the final 10 kilometres. The pace was almost unrecognisable from the majority of the stage as the teams jostled for position ahead final kilometre.

Trek-Segafredo had to settle for third on the opening stage and they were determined to rectify it, leading the charge into the final kilometre. Race leader Bennett held onto their coattails though and looked untouchable as he charged past Theuns to add victory on stage 2 to his win the day before.

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