Sam Bennett (BORA – hansgrohe) has taken the win on stage 2 of the Tour of Turkey today in Antalya, and has now taken over the race lead from Maximiliano Richeze (Quick Step Floors) following his second placed finish on yesterday’s opening stage.
The second stage covered 155 flat kilometres from Alanya to Antalya, and a group of four riders went up the road and opened up a gap of some minutes, before BORA – hansgrohe took control over the peloton and closed the gap shortly before the finish.
Approaching the finale, the BORA – hansgrohe train started to form their lead-out for Bennett. After another great performance from the whole German team, the Irish sprinter took an impressive win ahead of Alvaro Hodeg (Quick Step Floors) and Simone Consonni (UAE-Team Emirates).
Following his win, the Irish sprinter now leads the sprint as well as the general classification. He leads the race by 6″ overall from Richeze.
Sam Bennett: “I’m happy. It’s a bit of a relief. I came here after a quiet mid-season. I won’t say I can relax now but some of the pressure has gone. There are still some opportunities to come and the guys did a fantastic job today, as well. I really want to thank them.
“In the finale, I didn’t really know if we’d caught the breakaway or not because with around 10km to go it was so dangerous that I just had to concentrate on what I was doing. There was talking on the earpiece, and I would have liked to have put my hands up, but Quick-Step Floors came with about 500-600m to go and it was perfect positioning. It’s always good to get a victory going into the off-season. It keeps the morale high when you don’t have much racing.”
