Italian Giovanni Visconti won the overall title at the Tour of Turkey, after Germany's Andre Greipel won the final stage in the Mediterranean city of Antalya.
Visconti finished safely in the peloton to record the first professional stage race victory for his ISD-Neri team.
“It’s been harder for me to maintain the lead than take it”, Visconti said.
“I’m quite fast so I took the jersey thanks to the time bonuses. The defence of the jersey is due to the fantastic team that has worked for me from the first to the last of my team-mates and also my directeur sportif Luca Scinto who always told me I should be more confident in my capacities to win races.
"This win is a nice step in my career towards other successes I hope.”
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Visconti wins again in the Tour of Turkey
Giovanni Visconti won his second successive stage at the Tour of Turkey to take the overall lead. The Italian emerged from a five-man breakaway group at the end of the 209km 4th stage from Marmaris to Pamukkale, taking the win and the overall lead.We didn’t come here with the intention of winning the race overall”, Visconti said. “But now I’ll give my best to win the Tour of Turkey. I can’t guarantee that I’ll succeed because I’ve never been a GC rider so far. It has become a goal now. It’s a beautiful race."
Footon-Servetto's Gian-Paolo Cheula who was a part of a front group that included Visconti and ISD-Neri teammate Oscar Gatto, David Moncoutié (Cofidis), American Tejay Van Garderen (HTC-Columbia) and Christiano Salerno (De Rosa-Stac Plastic), made late bid for victory but was caught in the final 100m by Visconti.
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Van Garderen second at Turkey tour / by VeloNews.com
Tejay Van Garderen just missed victory in Wednesday’s 207km fourth stage at the Presidential Tour of Turkey and slotted into second overall at 16 seconds back.Giovanni Visconti, green jersey, beats Van Garderen and Moncoutié for his second stage win. © Tour of Turkey
The HTC-Columbia rider was part of the winning breakaway that took more than four minutes on the chasing peloton, leaving only four riders with a realistic shot at overall victory.
“I was able to sit on because we had André Greipel behind and he had a good chance of winning the stage if our breakaway was brought back,” Van Garderen said. “But Visconti and his team had a lot of motivation for taking the jersey. I needed to get a couple of seconds from him so I attacked but it didn’t work.
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April 12, Stage 2: Kusadasi - Turgutreis 181km - Greipel wins again in Turkey
André Greipel (HTC-Columbia) won his second consecutive stage at the Presidential Tour of Turkey in Turgutreis on Monday to extend his overall lead in the eight-day stage race to 16 seconds on American teammate Tejay Van Garderen.On Sunday Greipel won the 5.8km opening time trial stage in Istanbul and has now won eight races so far this season.
The experienced German managed to survive several late attacks from Giovanni Visconti (ISD-Neri) and Rein Taaramäe (Cofidis) before his teammate Mark Renshaw gave him a perfect lead-out in the long finishing straight.Along with some other sports, cycling has now become more and more popular in Turkey. At the beginning, lots of people were really surprised to find cyclists on the road, so sometimes it was really quite dangerous. Since then the local government authorities have put a lot of effort into construnting special routes for cyclists. It is easy to see that cycling is a very healthy way of travelling, you can appreciate the environment far more then from inside of a car. For reasons like this the number of cyclists has increased.
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Cycling becoming more popular!
A different kind of cycling which is becoming more and more popular is mountain biking. There are many places where you can rent the bikes, along with helmets and other equipment for little money. The mountains around are not too high so you will enjoy your ride. Even when it is really hot on the beach the green mountain areas will protect you from the heat.Lots of small roads lead to wonderful peaceful places, sometimes along riverbeds, and banks,where there are often picnic and barbeque areas. It is not unheard of stop for grilled trout and a swim in the river. İf you prefer there are some guided mountain bike tours already available. You can decide between trips for a day off the beach or even weekly trips, visiting well known sightseeing areas such as Pamukkale, Nemrut or Cappadokia. These trips are well organised with hotel accomodation on route and a bus service for luggage and heavy equipment.
