André Greipel won the final stage of the Tour of Turkey, with another perfect sprint ahead of Angelo Furlan and Kenny van Hummel. Giovanni Visconti clinched the overall title, ahead of HTC-Columbia's Tejay Van Garderen. The HTC team had an exceptional week, wit five stage wins through Greipel.
The sports director Jan Schaffrath was obviously pleased with the Turkish week that ended on the beautiful Mediterranean coast line, in Alanya. "It's been one of those stage races where everything fell into place, the team functioned perfectly and it all worked out well: a dream result," Schaffrath said. "André's five wins showed he was strong from start to finish, not just in the sprints, but also in the short time trial that opened the race and the hillier stages in the middle."
In fact, Greipel ended the overall in a very good seventh place and also claimed the overall victory in the points jersey competition.
"I was particularly pleased for Tejay," added Schaffrath. The podium spot for the American, who is a neo-pro, should give him great confidence for the future. "He did some great riding for André in the Tour of Mallorca and Tour of the Algarve in February, and here he got his own reward. It's very promising for the future. At the same time the team did brilliantly as a whole, although I'd like to single out Frankie Rabon. He crashed three times and got injured but never gave up, working tirelessly for the leaders."
For most of the 166-kilometer trek from Antalya to Alanya the ISD and HTC-Columbia teams controlled a five-man breakaway. "It wasn't too tricky today after we'd controlled things in the first part of the stage," Schaffrath said. "All in all, a final win was a great way to wrap up the week."
Ermanno Capelli (Footon - Servetto), Kalle Kriit (Cofidis, Le Credit en Ligne), David Deroo (Skil - Shimano), Bartlomiej Matysiak (CCC - Polsat - Polkowice) and Oleg Berdos (De Rosa - Stac Plastic) were the lucky riders to get away after 25km.
They had a maximum gap of 2'20 with 70km to go. ISD was controlling the pace to keep the overall lead for Visconti. HTC Columbia was especially pitching in later, to set things up for Greipel.
With one local lap of 16km remaining, the gap was down to 55 seconds. Capelli and Deroo resisted the longest, but nine kilometers from the line, the sprinters' teams had them.
Stage results
1. André Greipel (HTC-Columbia)
2. Angelo Furlan (Lampre)
3. Kenny Van Hummel (Skil-Shimano)
4. Sacha Modolo (Colnago - CSF Inox)
5. Francisco R. Chamorro Piva (Scott - Marcondes Cesar)
Final overall standings
1. Giovanni Visconti (ISD)
2. Tejay Van Garderen (HTC-Columbia)
3. David Moncoutié (Cofidis)