The Caja Rural-RGA team made the Cappadocia stage a decisive one as they catapulted Pello Bilbao to a brilliant victory in Uçhisar in the heart of the astonishing natural beauty of the central Anatolia, but stage 1 winner Przemyslaw Niemiec of Lampre-Merida defended his lead to retain the turquoise jersey by a mere six seconds in the absence of time bonuses in the 52nd Presidential Tour of Turkey.
Having done the Vuelta al Pais Vasco at WorldTour level and ridden so well at the Vuelta Castilla y Leon, where only Alejandro [Valverde] and Movistar could beat us, we knew we were coming to Turkey with the possibility to perform," Bilbao said. “We can even aim higher [than two stage wins by himself and Lluis Mas]. It was a great opportunity for me today and the way we rode as a team with six of us in the 15-man front group, even though it wasn’t a pre-race strategy to do that, the stage winner could have been David Arroyo or another team-mate.”
Bilbao was – and remains – one of the hot favorites for this year’s TUR. He missed out on GC last year after suffering a puncture at the worst moment in the crosswinds with 50km to go into the queen stage to Elmali. “That day, I said goodbye to the overall," he sadly remembered, but Turkey caught his heart.
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“I first came on holiday to Istanbul three years ago but this is my first time in Cappadocia," he said. “During the first two laps today I could have a look at the landscape and see what an excellent place it is. It’s so different from the other parts of the world we get the chance to explore while racing.”
The 18 knots wind in Cappadocia offered the big teams an opportunity for creating echelons, but CCC Sprandi Polkowice was more worried about the condition of their captain Davide Rebellin, who was injured in a crash early in stage 1 while Lampre-Merida was busy defending the lead of Niemiec. Motivated teams like Caja Rural-RGA were in the unknown of how hard the climb of Göreme was. Therefore, three riders escaped from the gun: Nicolas Baldo (Roth), Eduard Michael Grosu (Nippo-Vini Fantini) and Eugert Zhupa (Southeast), who just returned to racing after breaking a collarbone at the Three Days of De Panne one month ago.
The trio got a maximum lead of 4:20 after 60km of racing. “That wasn’t too difficult to control," Niemiec admitted. Lampre-Merida took the responsibility of the pace of the peloton until continental teams showed some great determination with 60km to go, successively Torku, Unieuro and Astana City. It was all together again 45km before the conclusion of the stage.
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