Alexandr Efimkin takes the lead as Tom Peterson loses time
André Greipel took what turned out to be an easy victory in the sixth stage of the Tour of Turkey, between Fethiye and Finike, at the head of a peloton of just 30 riders. The big German sprinter outpaced Egoitz Garcia and former race leader Bartosz Huzarski (NetApp) at the end of the hilly 19main 4km stage around the southern Turkish coast.
“It was a different way of winning here today than last year when it was a bunch sprint, but I’m still a sprinter,” said Greipel after his victory. “Anyone from my team could have been in the breakaway today, and all of us jumped in the first moves. It took 50 kilometres until the breakaway went, and I was lucky to be the one.
“Actually, I was not so happy to be there because I was pretty tired from the day before,” he added, “but I realized that I was in a good situation with Alexander Efimkin riding for GC. I was able to just wait for the sprint.
“I expected attacks in the last ten kilometres but it went so fast that there was no time for attacking,” Greipel continued, “and the head wind would have made it difficult to stay away. Before the Tour of Turkey, I took some rest. Now I managed to win a stage here and I’m happy with it. There are two possible bunch sprints remaining. I’ll try to be up there.”
After a frenetic start to the stage a group of twelve riders, including Greipel got away after 50km. Between them the breakaway riders managed to build a maximum lead of three minutes in the stage’s mid-section, but a concerted chase from the FDJ team created a number of splits in the peloton on the day’s biggest climb to Opet with 70km to go.
There were now thirty riders in the lead, with Greipel still there; also present was Alexander Efimkin (Team Type 1-Sanofi Avensis), who was third in the overnight standings but, crucially, not race leader Tom Peterson (Garmin-Cervélo) or second place Cameron Wurf (Liquigas-Cannondale).
Fourth and fifth placed Andrey Zeits (Astana) and Thibaut Pinot (FDJ) had also made the front group and they and Efimkin had a number of teammates with them to help to keep them away.
In the group behind, which numbered just ten riders, Peterson’s teammate Ramunas Navardauskas was working manfully to keep the front group’s advantage to a minimum. He managed to hold it to a minute for some time before it began to drift outwards.
By the finish the leaders’ advantage had grown to 2’19”, where, with no other sprinters even approaching Greipel’s calibre, the German took an easy sprint victory.
With Peterson and Wurf losing 2’19” each, Efimkin takes the race lead, with Zeits and Pinot also jumping into the last two podium positions.
“I was having trouble sleeping all night because I lost yesterday,” said Efimkin. “I would nod off, then jolt awake and think: ‘Damn, I lost.’ When I woke up this morning: well… I still lost yesterday; but I was ready to go for stage six.”