Tour of Turkey wraps early as rain causes last stage to be cancelled

Seven days of challenging, windy racing came to a close in Istanbul today as the Presidential Cycling Tour of Turkey finished earlier than expected with an unfortunate halt to proceedings as the final stage was cancelled during the opening kilometers after rain brought about some dangerous conditions on the slippery road surface.

Rider safety rightly came first and after a big crash in the first 20km the organizers decided it was better to neutralize the last day of racing. Team Novo Nordisk come away with two of their main objectives achieved as breakaways, close calls and a top ten for Andrea Peron on stage five meant for an interesting and ultimately successful week for the world’s first all diabetes professional cycling team.

Andrea Peron:

“After about 20km of racing today, it started raining and the road just became like ice. About 40 guys went down and the organizers neutralized the race immediately. There’s no way we could have raced safely on that surface in the wet, so they made the right call.”

“The Tour of Turkey is one of the most important races on our calendar and I think we have had a pretty good week this time around. We had our goals to get in the breakaway and achieve a top ten stage result which we did, so we can go away happy and look to carry some forward momentum with us into the Tour of Greece which comes next.”

Filippo Ridolfo:

“It’s been a great experience for me racing as a first-year pro at the Tour of Turkey, this is the longest race I’ve ever done, and I have to say it was very hard. The first three or four stages were ok, but then the fatigue set in, and I found it harder and harder to recover but it is all kilometers in the bank as they say, and I will be stronger from this experience.”

“I still tried to help the team every day and I think I’m adapting more and more to this level. It’s so much higher than U23 and even though there are less attacks and the racing is more controlled; you need to use more power all the time and in the beginning, it was definitely a shock to the system. I really enjoy it though and to be able to come here to Turkey and every day show what’s possible with diabetes by racing in the TNN jersey is a real privilege and a great motivator to keep going every day.”