Ivailo Gabrovski wins the third stage of the Presidential Cycling Tour of Turkey 2012
After his remarkable performance t the Tour of Morocco earlier this month, Ivailo Gabrovski is now testing his legs at the Presidential Tour of Turkey.
The cyclist claimed the third overall spot at the Tour of Morocco and was amongst the favourites for the Turkish race.
The local hero struggled during the first two stages but finally found his form during the third stage of the race.
He received immense support from the crowd who yelled "Turkiye! Turkiye!" during the opening stage of the race.
Gabrovski told Cyclingnews, "I've cruised all over the world for racing before I joined this team, but I developed as a cyclist in France”.
“I'm proud to speak French and I owe everything to [former Festina sport director and now riders' agent] Michael Gros who gave me my first contract with Jean Delatour [in 2000]".
"I decided to attack from far out [8km from the hilltop finish] to anticipate the action of the big teams like Astana with Vinokourov.
“Everyone focused on the final three kilometres. In fact, these were the three hardest kilometres of my whole cycling career”.
Ivailo finished the opening stage of the race at the 92nd position and secured the 109th position at the stage 2 of the race.
The cyclist filled his bag with a stage victory during the third stage of the race.
He completed the 152 kilometre chase to Elmali in a fastest time of 4 hours, 21 minutes and 9 seconds.
Alexandr Dyachenko of Team Astana finished 1 minute and 29 seconds behind and achieved the second position with Danial Andonov Petrov of Team Caja Rural finishing further 3 seconds behind at the third position.
Vladimir Isaychev, Marco Bandiera and Ivaïlo Gabrovski succeeded during the first three sprints of the race while Volodymir Bileka, Marco Bandiera and Ivaïlo Gabrovski secured the first, the second and the third mountain of the race.
Gabrovski has now jumped up to the first position after the stage 3 classifications.
Alexandr Dyachenko and Danail Andonov Petrov are holding the second and the third positions with a deficit of 1:33 and 1:38.
Matthew Harley Goss, Francesco Chicchi and Ivailo Gabrovski are dominating the point’s classifications with Andre Greipel and Theo Bos at the fourth and the fifth positions.
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