Tour of turkey stage 1

This week i am racing the tour of turkey. The objective this week is simply to get some racing rythm into my system before the tour of california. Personally i could not think of anywhere better to train than down the south coast of turkey with each stage following the sea and from what i have hear some very impressive and beautiful sights. It wont be all relax as we have 2 very good sprinter on our team this week and i will be doing what i can to help fight the other sprinters in the race for the stage victories. Later in the race on paper stages 3, 4 and 6 appear to be more selective and if i feel good will see if i can finish further toward the front than the back.

Today was the first stage and took place in istanbul. Just 120km was on the menu this morning for a bit of a warm up for the peleton. It was a unique stage in that it began in europe and ended in asia and hense crossing two continents. The stage began with a flat fast run out of the european side of istanbul. After 10km we crossed Bosforus bridge which seperates europe and asia and completed 8 laps of a 12km circuit on asian soil to decide the race won by a young italian sensation spring giardini from the farnise neri team. Our boys jacabo and elia were in the fight for the sprint win so as the race goes on will certainly come more to the fore. For me it was a nice little warm up and did not suffer to bad so i hope a good sign that the work done with liquigas cannondale team trainer paolo slongo over the past few months is going to plan. Certainly looking forward to the longer and more difficult days which i enjoy a little more. Having enjoyed some of istanbuls finest cuisine its down the coast we head for the next 7 days, i have been told that the hotels are pretty top notch and some right on the beach so looking forward to the week ahead.

Cjw
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