Today the fifth stage of the Tour of Turkey took place. It promised to be a quiet day for Southeast but that was not the case.

This morning in the technical meeting, the sport directors Giuseppe Di Fresco and Andrea Bardelli gave carte blanche to Manuel Belletti and Alessandro Petacchi: "Whe you are in the final you can decide who will do the sprint today." On paper, however, the finish might seem better suited to Petacchi, with a slight slope in the final but veteran was generous and has always been. And so today he put himself at the service of Manuel Belletti, who took another fifth place.

Instead, what could ruin the day iwas the sad incident that occurred far from the finish, when there is usually no nervousness in group. Suddenly there was a between Dmitri Gruzdev and a Lampre rider and they touched Samuel Conti who asked for more caution. At this point, Gruzdev lost control and took his hands off the handlebars. Eugert Zhupa was behind and asked the Kazakh to stop. At this point, the Astana rider stopped, trying to fight with the Albanian rider.

"We deeply regret this gesture." said Giuseppe Di Fresco at the finish. "The violence has nothing to do with cycling. The images have gone around the world, and none of us can be happy. This is not the image we want to give. Fortunately the commissaires who were at the scene and also looked at the video, made the right decision [by disqualifying Gruzdev]. We must be able to work calmly and give a beautiful picture of this wonderful sport, as it deserves."