Kittel triumphs in opening stage at Presidential Cycling Tour of Turkey

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Hampered by bad luck a year ago, when he was held up by crashes and finished second in stage 7 to Izmir, Marcel Kittel of Argos-Shimano took a sweet revenge when he cruised to victory in the 143km opening stage from Alanya and back at the 49th Presidential Tour of Turkey. The German outsprinted his compatriot André Greipel (Lotto-Belisol) and Ukraine's Yuriy Metlushenko (Torku Seker Spor) for the stage win.

"Our strength as a team is to always stay calm," Kittel said after taking his fourth win of the year. "That was the key for winning today. I'm very happy indeed.

"Last year, it was not the best race for us. Personally I was looking forward to doing better as a team. We told ourselves what we needed to do and how we should position ourselves. Last year we did quite a lot of mistakes. Perhaps we were too excited. But I think it started pretty well in the 2013 Tour!"

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Turkish rider Mustafa Sayar of Torku Seker Spor was the first man to go out on the attack. He got his moment of glory as he became the first king of the mountains in this year's race after crossing the line atop the second category climb located at km 42.6 in first position.

"I knew that I'd get the honour to wear the Kizmiri (red) jersey for two days if I was first up there," Sayar said. "It'll be exciting to have it on stage 3 to Elmali."

Sayar was later joined by Javier Aramendia (Caja Rural), Nikolay Mihaylov (CCC Polsat), Mikhail Ignatiev (Katusha) and Juan Esteban Arango (Colombia). They reached an advantage of five minutes at half way.

On the same day as Liège-Bastogne-Liège, it was also a round trip with a U-turn located at Güneyköy (literally "the village of the south" – and that was the southern-most point of today's route) before heading back to the north and facing a headwind. A track rider for Colombia at the London Olympics where he finished 10th in the omnium, Arango won the intermediate sprint 60 kilometres before the finish. Ignatiev's solo attack with 30 kilometres to go didn't change the expected outcome of a bunch gallop, but the Russian bagged the first Turkish Beauties Sprint at 126.8km.

"Sometimes the bunch stops its effort when only one rider is away but it wasn't the case," the Katusha rouleur said. "I'm here to gain my start at the Giro because I'm one of the 12 potential starters so far, so I'm glad to show that my form is pretty good at the moment."

While many teams took their turns at the front in the battle over the final five kilometres, Team Argos-Shimano perfectly set up Kittel, who won easily in front of Greipel whose leadout man Vicente Reynes got a flat tyre with six kilometers to go.

Monday's 150km stage 2 from Alanya to Antalya is expected to end up with another bunch sprint prior to the queen stage to Elmali on the third day of racing.