Last stage in Turkey sees Beadle sprinting into the top 15

Hamish Beadle (NZL)

Today was a sprint day, a real sprint day. The kind of day I like. Flat with only a 3km climb early on. The first 20km were pretty hard with the big teams not letting any break go, but we stayed together, organized and pretty well positioned.

The rest of the stage was all about preparing for the finale. We all worked well together, and I had each one of my teammates there creating space for me, making sure I was in the right position. Declan (Irvine) supported me until the end and dropped me off around two kilometers to go and from there it was all about fighting and jostling in the hectic bunch sprint.

I’m happy with how today went and in general with how the last four days went. For the first race of the season, this is a real confidence booster.

General Manager, Vassili Davidenko (RUS)

After a few days of hard racing here in Antalya, today’s final stage was our last chance to bring home a good result.

We expected a fast finale and that’s certainly what we got. Thanks to great work by all the guys Hamish had a good chance to position himself well and he took it. In particular Declan, who was the last man leading him into the final kilometer, made sure Hamish was dropped off right where he needed to be.

After a tough year last year it’s a real boost for Hamish to make it into the top 15 today, ok we missed the top 10 by just a couple of places, but it’s only the beginning and we have the whole season to show what’s possible with diabetes!