Elia Viviani's streak of wins at the Tour of Turkey was broken today when he could only manage 2nd behind Mark Cavendish in the final stage. However, the Italian was unwilling to take any risks so close to the Giro d'Italia and so lost the battle for Cavendish's wheel to Andrea Guardini.

Elia Viviani has marked himself out as a potential threat to Marcel Kittel's expected dominance of the Giro d'Italia sprints by taking some very impressive stage wins ahead of Mark Cavendish at the Tour of Turkey. Today he had the chance to make it three sprint victories in a row in the final stage but this time he was beaten by the Brit.

Viviani was perfectly positioned on Cavendish's wheel but seemed to not take up the fight when Andrea Guardini pushed him one position further back. The Cannondale sprinter said that he was unwilling to take any risks so close to the Giro and so let his compatriot take the preferred position.

“Today, contrarily to the previous days when I won, I didn’t manage to take Cavendish’s wheel because Guardini took it first," he said. "I said before the start that I wouldn’t take any chances before the Giro because my mission was accomplished before this last stage.

"My team still worked hard to prepare the sprint but like in the first two days, the speed was very high and in these conditions, Cav was again the strongest.”