Jose Goncalves wins the Tour of Turkey

Image 1 of 14

Jakub Mareczko of Southeast outsprinted Lampre-Merida’s Sacha Modolo on the final day of the 52nd Presidential Tour of Turkey to equal his compatriot’s haul of stage victories in the pre-Giro d’Italia event. Portugal’s José Gonçalves of Caja Rural-RGA comfortably retained the overall lead to claim his first international stage race at the age of 27.

“This is an important victory in my career as I want to join a World Tour team,” Gonçalves explained. “I feel a bit of frustration for not taking the form I have now to the Giro but our team hasn’t been invited. However, the next big goal will be the Vuelta a España, where I expect to share the captaincy with Pello Bilbao. I’m an all-rounder and I want to capitalize on this victory in Turkey to improve my potential. This is a very nice race. I’m delighted with the experience.”

The last stage concluded in Selçuk, where the TUR has had an uphill finish in the past three editions, but it was a flat finish this time around. The uphill exit of the sea side city of Marmaris enabled four riders to break away: Muhammat Atalay (Torku), Nicolas Baldo (Roth), Alessandro Malaguti (Unieuro) and Jan Hirt (CCC Sprandi Polkowice). For most of the race, they cruised with an advantage of 2:30 over the bunch led by Lampre-Merida but the Italian team gave up with 40km to and the time gap went out.

Baldo got dropped when Atalay, Malaguti and Hirt sped up to reach a maximum lead of 5.50 with 29km remaining into the last stage.

Astana City, the team of surprise third-place finisher Nikita Stalnov – he went by Umerbekov, his father’s name, until he changed for his mother’s name last year – was first to react. Lotto-Soudal also realized the danger and Lampre-Merida pulled again with 15km to go. It was all together again 12km before the finish in Selçuk.

A few attacks took place in the finale but a bunch sprint finish was inevitable. “I was guided by my teammates Eugert Zhupa, Liam Bertazzo and Manuel Belletti.” Mareczko explained. “300 metres before the line, I was on Modolo’s wheel and I managed to pass him. It’s a big satisfaction because today’s stage wasn’t flat. It didn’t exactly suit my characteristics. The team tremendously helped me in the hills, particularly in the long climb at the beginning. Having learned from yesterday, we rode uphill at the front of the bunch so I was able to crest the summit in the middle of the bunch and not get dropped.

“This has been a very positive Tour of Turkey for me ahead of the Giro d’Italia. I’m not going home, I’ll fly straight to Holland where I hope to get a good result in one of the first few stages of the Giro as well.”

The happiest people were obviously in the Caja Rural-RGA camp. “It’s been all nice today, the weather, the results, the atmosphere…” commented team captain and Beauties of Turkey competition winner Lluis Mas. “We were happy with the breakaway that took shape. In our quest for GC, it was fine for us if they made it to the finish. But with 40km to go, Lampre-Merida stopped pulling. They said we could let the breakaway five minutes ahead and catch them up later, so other teams went to the front. My only concern was to stay with José [Gonçalves].

“The race situation was perfect at the Beauties of Turkey point, because the riders in the lead were no threat for my jersey so I win it for the second straight year. We came to Turkey with the aim of winning GC, either with Pello Bilbao or José, but we would have never thought we could win the two hardest stages, come first, second and fourth overall, and win another classification like the Beauties of Turkey. For the second time, we get a big success in Turkey. We’re happy as a team.”

The 52nd Presidential Tour of Turkey might have attracted fewer World Tour teams than in the past few years but all stage winners have exhibited a Grand Tour pedigree, successively Przemyslaw Niemiec (Lampre-Merida), Bilbao, André Greipel (Lotto-Soudal), Modolo, and Mareczko, while the race also revealed the big potential of queen stage winner Jaime Roson, also from Caja Rural-RGA.

Full Results