Andrea Guardini won stage seven of the Tour of Turkey in Manavgat to record his second victory in this year's race.

It was a third stage win for the Farnese Vini team as Guardini won the mass gallop to the line at the end of the 138km stage ahead of Kenny van Hummel (Skil-Shimano) with sprint stars Tyler Farrar, Andre Greipel and Alessandro Petacchi completing the top five.

Yohan Bagot (Cofidis), Andrea Pasqualon (Colnago), Rob Goris (Willems) and Alexander Ryabkin (Caja Rural) went clear after 34km of the stage that set out from Tekirova but their lead was never allowed to grow to more than two minutes and the four escapees were caught with 33km to go.

A counter attack by Sep Vanmarcke (Garmin), Paolo Locatelli (Colnago) and Svetoslav Tchanliev (Konya) was foiled with 10km to go to set up the inevitable bunch sprint that Guardini claimed to record his eighth win of the year after five successes at the Tour of Langkawi in Malaysia and one at the Tour of Qatar

Alexander Efimkin (Team Type 1-Sanofi Aventis) finished safely in the bunch to maintain his 1:13 lead over Andrey Zeits (Astana) and will wear the wear the turquoise jersey in Sunday’s final stage from Side to Alanya as he bids to claim his first win since the Settimana Lombarda in 2007.

Eurosport