Caja Rural delivers Bilbao to stage 2 win in Turkey

CAPPADOCIA, Turkey—It was a dominant performance by Caja Rural-Seguros RGA on the fourth and final lap of the 36.4-kilometre circuit along the historic ‘Silk Road’ in the stunningly beautiful Cappadocia region that ultimately delivered 26-year-old Spaniard Pello Bilbao to the finish with a 154.1km stage 2 win at the 52nd Presidential Tour of Turkey on Monday, April 25.

“I said before coming here that I was really motivated,” said Bilbao in the post race media conference. “This is a special race for me and for the team. Last year we did a great job (referring to teammate Kristijan Durasek’s overall race win) and we wanted to do the same thing this year.”

From the very beginning of the race, Eugurt Zhupa (Southeast), Nicolas Baldo (Team Roth) and Eduard Michael Grosu (Nippo-Vini Fantini) launched a three-man break just after the flag dropped following a 1.8km neutral start.

Zhupa, Baldo and Grosu went one, two, three respectively in the stage’s one and only sprint points opportunity at 37.5km in to the race.

The break extended to a 4 minute 30 second lead before the peloton organised and caught them with 45km to go.

With 40.6km to go, Ricardo Vilela (Caja Rural-Seguros RGA) attacked on a steep section exiting Göreme. Vilela was caught soon after, but his teammates immediately launched a counter with six riders to split the peloton.

After the lead group was cut down from 35 riders to 15, including Caja Rural’s Bilbao, Vilela, José Gonçalvés, Jamie Roson, David Arroyo and Luís Mas, along with race leader Przemyslaw Niemiec (Lampre-Merida), Ilia Koshevoy (Lampre-Merida), Sylwester Szmyd (CCC Sprandi Polkowice), Rémy Di Gregorio (Delko Marseille Provence KTM), Quentin Pacher (Delko Marseille Provence KTM), Nikita Stalnov (Astana City), Ahmet Örken (Torku Sekerspor), Giovanni Carboni  (Unieuro Wilier) and Mauro Finetto (Unieuro Wilier) with 24km to go.

A seven-rider chase group, including Simone Petilli (Lampre-Merida), Adam Hansen (Lotto Soudal), Greg Henderson (Lotto Soudal), Davide Rebellin (CCC Sprandi Polkowice), Karel Hnik (Verva Activejet), Jochem Hoekstra (Parkhotel Valkenburg) and Jasper Ockeloen (Parkhotel Valkenburg), followed but never managed to bridge the gap.

Inside 3km, the race was down to four with Niemiec isolated with three rider from the Spanish UCI Pro Continental team – Bilbao, Gonçalvés and Arroyo – in the leading group with the 36-year-old Polish race leader. Bilbao then attacked with Gonçalves and Arroyo glued to Niemiec’s rear wheel. 

Niemiec surged but failed to stay with Bilbao to the finish, losing 9 seconds on general classification in the process to maintain his grip on the turquoise leaders jersey by 6 seconds over Bilbao and 11 over Gonçalvés.

“We wanted to do our job today because it was a great opportunity for me, after Elmali (stage 6), which may be too hard, I don’t know,” admitted Bilbao, who struggled on the category 1 climb on stage 3 last year.

“The team did a really great job today, I could be alone in the last 2km and maybe, if I it wasn’t me, Arroyo or another teammate could have been in my place. One of the teammates had to go to the front to put the leader in a complicated situation to force Lampre to work, and it went fantastically. I want to thank all the team. This is for all the team.”