The queen stage at the Tour of Türkiye saw the peloton take on a challenging 3000 metres of climbing in only 115 kilometres of racing, which included a brand-new summit finish of Kiran – which averages over nine percent in gradient for nine kilometres. From the start it was a hectic and aggressive racing but Team Picnic PostNL kept their cool, sticking to the plan of bringing last year’s winner Frank van den Broek and Juan Martinez into position to go for it on the last climb.
The stage was made only more difficult by heavy rains that fell over the peloton and along the parcours, but the team remained steadfast and brought the climbing duo into the last ascent in the lead positions of the peloton. From there, a strong tempo was set and riders were jettisoned from the bunch, before Poels made a probing move at five kilometres to go which Martinez covered. Van den Broek and Lopez soon joined them, but the pace lulled and a few more riders returned, however they immediately attacked and that upped the tempo once more. Coming into the final three kilometres it was a battle between the four riders and Poels made his decisive attack. Martinez and Van den Broek battled all the way to the line up the steep slopes, taking a brilliant third and fourth place on the day thus holding the same positions in the overall battle as the stage race heads into it’s second half.
