Andrea Guardini (Astana) got close to a big win in today's penultimate stage of the Tour of Turkey when he was narrowly beaten into second by an impressive Elia Viviani (Cannondale). The Italian was frustrated after taking another place of honour and blamed Gert Steegmans for having ruined his chances.

Andrea Guardini is known as one of the fastest sprinters in the world and so it is now wonder that he has always excelled in the Tour of Turkey. Known as a sprinters paradise, the Turkish race offer four very easy and short stages that are perfectly suited to a pure sprinter like the Astana rider.

Having just come back from a few problems with his teeth, Guardini didn't have much success in the first two stages but used the hillier stages at the midpoint of the race to improve his condition, keeping an eye on the final two short, flat stages. One year ago he finished 2nd behind Marcel Kittel in both and he is eager to do better this time around.

He got close in today's first chance when he was only narrowly beaten into second by Elia Viviani in a very confusing sprint. A Belkin rider opened a gap to the OPQS riders Gert Steegmans, Alessandro Petacchi and Mark Cavendish and so both Viviani and Guardini had to do a very long and impressively fast sprint to get past Cavendish just before the line.

Having had so many places of honour, Guardini was frustrated by another second place and blamed Steegmans for dropping back through the middle of the field, thus causing a lot of confusion.

“Another podium… I don’t know whether it was Steegmans, but the third man of OPQS stopped his effort in the middle of the road in a very dangerous way," he said. "A gap was created between Cavendish and the rider next to him. Viviani took his wheel and managed to upstage him. Behind them, I kicked out fine.

"At 400m to go I had to stop and avoid a Quick Step rider [Steegmans] coming backwards, and that made a hole in the sprint. Viviani jumped to pass Cavendish and I jumped to try and take Viviani.

"I was feeling good. I had speed in my legs but I started from too far to have a chance. I’m very motivated by these last two stages of the Tour of Turkey because in the past, I was never outside the top 5. I’m finishing this race in a much better condition than I was in at the start. Of course I’m disappointed to have missed my chance today but I will try until the end.