Wout Poels leads Astana's victorious charge in head-to-head clash of two relegation battle rivals: "I was a bit afraid of Picnic"

In a head-to-head clash of main protagonists of relegation battle, XDS Astana beat Picnic PostNL by a difference of class. For Wout Poels, who now becomes a new leader of general classification, this is a first victory since last year's stage 5 of Tour de Hongrie.

"I felt good today. The same went for my teammate Harold Lopez, so we could play our cards as a team. It was really a good team performance," he says afterwards. "It actually started after Nico's pull (Vinokourov, ed.), after which I wanted to make the first selection with my attack."

"At that moment I saw Harold and Frank van den Broek join us, after which we could play the game together. We did that very well. I was a bit afraid of Picnic, because Frank won the race last year. He is a really good rider. A 1-2 is nice for our team and also for Harold. He is having a very good season and has taken another big step."

In the interview, Poels is also asked about his age, whether he thinks he will win the Tour of Turkey now and the upcoming Giro d'Italia. "Yep, I'm getting older. But my level is still very high. It's just very difficult to win a race, so I'm very happy with this."

"The next few days we'll take it day by day. It was already tricky today with the rain, so hopefully everyone is OK. There are still some obstacles to overcome. My goal is to be top-top in the Giro, but let me focus on this race first," he concludes.

Tommorow should be a calm day for Poels but on Friday he'll have an opportunity to add another victory on his tally. The stage 6 will loop around and back to Selcuk to then finish near a temple above Selcuk with a selective climb of 4.2 km at 8.4%.