Bilbao wins Tour of Turkey stage 2

Image 1 of 21

The Caja Rural-Seguros 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.

"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-Seguros 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.

Caja Rural-RGA put the hammer down with 40km to go. They created a front group of 15 riders: Ilia Koshevoy and Niemiec (Lampre-Merida), Bilbao, José Gonçalves, Ricardo Vilela, Jaime Roson, David Arroyo, Lluis Mas (Caja Rural-RGA), Sylvester Szmyd (CCC Sprandi Polkowice), Rémy Di Gregorio and Quentin Pacher (Delko Marseille), Nikita Stalnov (Astana City), Ahmet Örken (Torku), Giovanni Carboni and Mauro Finetto (Unieuro). The Spanish squad rode hard enough to leave a seven man group with Rebellin and Adam Hansen (Lotto-Soudal) one minute behind with 20km to go.

"In the final ascent, we got Ricardo Vilela to attack to make the leader’s life difficult and that led to a counter attack by Pello Bilbao [with 2.5km to go]," beauties of Turkey leader Mas explained. "It’s perfect because out of the six of us in the front group, our GC rider eventually wins the stage."

"It’s always good to make the podium even though it would have been better to win but after all the work they’ve done, Caja Rural deserved to win. They have made the decision," commented third placed Finetto, who also remained in contention for the overall victory.

"It’s been a hard day but I managed to reach my goal of keeping the lead," Niemiec said. "I owe a beer to Ilia Koshevoy who helped me tremendously. This is my first time holding a leader’s jersey in a stage race since the Route du Sud I won in France in 2009 but it won’t be easy to stay on top of the classification against a team like Caja Rural."

Full Results