The two haven’t really gone head to head in this year’s Tour of Turkey, with crashes, obstructions in the finale and the tough terrain on some stages ensuring that they were never in contention in the final 100 metres of any stage. However yesterday’s victor Marcel Kittel appears to be looking forward to the chance of squaring up against his compatriot Andre Greipel on today’s final stage of the Tour of Turkey.
Kittel said in yesterday’s press conference that he thought the two could get to go head to head today. “I think that Andre is also still motivated,” he smiled. “We both have a chance and we will see.”
Each have taken two stages apiece in the race, with Kittel triumphing on days one and seven and Greipel coming out best on stages four and five.
While the Lotto Belisol rider was hampered by riders getting the sharp corner near the finish wrong yesterday, Kittel had a better run to the line. However he said that he nearly hit the deck himself.
“To be honest the last two kilometres were very difficult, because almost every team was losing each other,” he said. “I also lost my guys, then I just came back onto the wheel of Nikias Arndt and the other guys with 1500 metres before the finish.
“I was shouting at them to go, and they brought me into the last corner. I was actually drifting around it and I had to click out of my pedals to avoid crashing. I was lucky enough to get in it immediately [the pedals] and then I just followed Koen de Kort. He brought me into a very good position with 500 metres to go and then I could just wait there until 80 or 70 [metres to go]. From there I started my sprint. It was a very exciting finale.”
At the finish of stage six Kittel tweeted pointedly about the result. “I was not often in my life so angry about a result of someone else,” he wrote. “And I see many people around me feeling the same.”
The message clearly referred to the dominant victory of Mustafa Sayar, a rider with the Continental Torku Sekerspor team.
Kittel was asked about this in yesterday’s conference, but didn’t want to say much.
“What I tweeted yesterday [Friday – ed.] had a reason. I would just like now to concentrate on the rest of the stage race, tomorrow there is a sprint again for us. I think that everybody understood what I said and I want to leave it like that.”
See the full press conference here: