Today is the fifth day in what has so far been an exciting Tour of Turkey. Tom Zirbel took the yellow jersey yesterday, with Aurelien Passeron moving into second overall. Today is Zirbel’s first real challenge. He must hold on to the jersey over a 221km course that has a couple of nasty-looking climbs and a rolling section towards the end.
Regardless, the bookmakers are today tipping it to be a real day for the sprinters. Claudio Corioni is obviously the best of these riders though some other sprinters like Vingerling and Borrajo will be wanting to make their presence felt.
There is a sense that, after yesterday, the most important break of the race has already had its day and so, after 10km when Maxim Belkov decides to set off, everyone is content to let him go.
He builds 2 minutes quite easily until Johim Ariesen is sent out by his team. Passeron is still in the mountain jersey but only has 32 points. As it happens there are 32 points on offer today, so if Ariesen can win just one of the two climbs today then he will have defended Passeron’s jersey. Ariesen checks across to see if anyone else wants to bridge across with him, and finds himself short of help.
Half way up the first categorised climb of the day, the rain starts pouring down. The weather has been terrible for almost this entire tour. Ariesen is not able to bridge across in time, so Belkov easily takes the first KOM points. Ariesen climbs through 1’28” later, and the peleton are more than two and a half minutes back from him. Thomas Voeckler leads the group over for WWE, trying to keep things contained for Vingerling. Pieter Ghyllebert and Kiel Reignen come through next.
Ariesen manages to bridge across on the descent and the two men start to work together to build up a lead. By the only intermediate sprint of the day they have managed to build the gap to over 10 minutes, though with 129km to go, this is far from decisive. Ariesen is allowed to roll over ahead of Belkov, who clearly has no GC ambitions today. Alex Diniz takes third, keeping the pace constant to control the break. WWE are working well with Rapha and Venchi, who are working for Abdallah and Corioni respectively.
Now the moment of truth for Ariesen – he has to take the maximum points at the top of this climb to defend Passeron’s jersey. He lets Belkov set the pace, but Belkov understands what Ariesen is doing and he raises the pace more than the young Rothaus rider can handle. Ariesen drops off his wheel and the pain is immediately clear on his face.
With 96km to go, Belkov goes over the top. Ariesen is 1’35” behind him and the peleton is 5’50” behind Ariesen. Bram Tankink, then Voeckler and Diniz lead the group over. Clearly WWE sense a real chance today for Vingerling.
Within 30km the peleton has caught and dropped Ariesen. The young rider just went pop and couldn’t hold the pace any longer. It will be a long and lonely final 65km. The pace is so high that in the wind there are some casualties. The most important riders to get lost in the wind are the two sprinters Pavel Korzh and Eric Baumann. WWE are pulling the peleton along almost single-handedly, with the occasional turn taken by a Venchi rider.
This means that with 7km to go Maxim Belkov is caught. He has moved himself into equal first in the mountain classification and can be satisfied with that.
The wind is high so it is hard for any team to form a train. Rapha send Alex Dowsett to the front to try to string things out a bit. This forms the start of a train, that goes like this: Dowsett Sagan Ghyllebert Bernucci
None of the sprinters are placed well near the front, and they have clearly all struggled to hold on in the furious tempo set by WWE, who have now completely disappeared from the front. They have handed the stage victory to someone else!
But none of this matters as Samuel Sanchez launches himself off the front with only 2.5km to go!
He quickly builds a small gap as the favourites all realise t hat they have to throw their hat in the ring. Mathias Kessler and most of the other puncheurs surge forward as they see a chance to take advantage of a disrupted sprint.
Dowsett chases as hard as he can and launches his sprint early. This succeeds in pulling Sanchez back, but Sagan finds himself incredibly well placed. He launches his effort to come around Dowsett.
And no one can stop him.
Dowsett gets second place as a consolation prize for his effort to drag Sanchez in. Sanchez barely holds on to third ahead of Kessler, who solidifies his hold on the points jersey.
Bernucci manages fifth, Hermans 6th and Visconti makes it two riders in the top 10 for Unicredit. Di Maggio comes in 8th, but will lose his young riders jersey tonight to Sagan. Murakami does a great ride to come in 9th and Van Hummel is the best of the real sprinters in 10th place.
In the GC Sagan moves ahead of Konovalovas in to 5th place due to the time bonus for his win. He also takes the young riders jersey. Passeron is now tied with Belkov for the lead in the King of the Mountain classification, though he will continue to wear the jersey.
Sadly, Johim Ariesen was so ruined by his efforts during the day that he couldn’t make it inside the time limit and so he is eliminated.
