Late climbs and late attacks wrap up stage seven in Turkey

The penultimate stage of this year’s Presidential Cycling Tour of Turkey rolled out from historic Gallipoli and inland towards Istanbul and onto a pair of second category climbs before climaxing in late attacks form the GC contenders with a reduced group going all the way to the line.

Experienced former Hungarian road champion Peter Kusztor tried a courageous move to bridge across to the early breakaway, but the rolling roads went against him and despite his best efforts Kusztor didn’t quite make it and was caught by the peloton.

Peter Kusztor (HUN):

“I really tried hard to make it across and at one point came within 30seconds, but the undulating roads and high speed were slightly too much. I kept a good pace and tried to focus on a concentrated effort, like a TT but lost it on the climb.”

“It would have been great for us to get up there again to show our jersey and my kids are watching on the TV at home and I wanted to them to be able to say ‘look, there’s Daddy!’ but it wasn’t to be today. We’ve got one more stage to go to try something.”

General manager Vassili Davidenko (RUS):

“We wanted to get more out of today and Peter put in a good effort to try and make it across to the break, but it didn’t happen, and it was our objective to be in there. We needed to be more alive to the early attacks because with today’s profile it was always going to be tough to do something in the final and it wasn’t a surprise when it was a reduced group that contested the stage.”

“One more stage to come and it will be hard and fast on the circuits in Istanbul. It would be great to get something out of tomorrow, one more top ten stage result would be ideal.”