Today started in a bit of an unique way for me with a swimm at the beach. Our hotel was right on the beach so i thought why not sample the turkish water. It certainly woke me up, i doubt the temperature was much north of 15degrees but was certainly good for the recovery of my legs and they felt great for the start of the race. As for the race it was a much more straight forward stage, a small group got away after just 30km and the group was happy to have an easy day after yesterdays blow out. The race was expected to split up on the final small climb just 10km from the finish and it was true to form. A flurry of attacks were fired by the climbers and the group got smaller and smaller. I just followed the moves and made sure not significant group got away without me in it. By the top there was a group of about 20 of us but with still 5km to the finish and such a fast decent another 40 or so rejoinded us on the way down. When we hit the final 3km in the town of marmaris we were greeted with a technical brick surface series of corners and curves so i not wanting to take any risks just stayed safe at the back of the group. Unfortunately my relaxed approach to the crazy finish cost me 6sec from the winner as a gap was let go in the final few hundred meters and unfortunately i was on the wrong side of it. Anyways luckily my team mate and gc leader for the race francesco belloti was on the good side of it so one of us is toward the top of the gc. The next few days look much more selective so i will certainly make sure i am a little more aggressive in the finale's. Good news for the day was my great mate and fellow tasmanian wez sulzberger was 3rd, the tight twisty finish with a small group perfectly suited to the 2007 world u23 silver medalist so i am very pleased for him. He also takes over the lead in the "tassie cup" so i have my work cut out for me. You certainly need to be in good shape to contend for the tassie cup these days, hopfully in the not to distant future the depth of talent of riders from the apple isle means we are filling up podium at races all over europe.
Anyway was almost a good day, good little reminder not to ever relax in these type of finales, unfortunately i still seem to make the odd stupid mistake but they seem to be becoming less frequent so thats good news and a positive for me. Looking forward to the very difficult on paper atleast stage tomorrow and seeing what transpires.
Cjw
Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless device
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