Tour of Turkey: Lutsenko wins stage 4

Alexey Lutsenko claimed victory on the hilltop finish at Selcuk on stage 4 of the 2018 Tour of Turkey, getting the better of Diego Ulissi (UAE Team Emirates) in the final dash to the line.

Ulissi had triumphed on this very finish 12 months previously, and hit out with 150 metres to go, but Lutsenko came from behind and overhauled the Italian in the final 50 metres.

Eduard Prades (Euskadi-Murias), who started to jump at the same time as Ulissi, took third place, Lutsenko having ripped past him. James Knox (Quick-Step Floors) was fourth, with a small gap back to the rest of what was a sizeable group of around 15 riders.

"Today was a really long and hard day but this victory is important for me and my team. It's the last race of the season and my form is now coming back, but I'm very happy,” Lutsenko said.

"In my first race of the season, in Oman, I had the victory there, and the last race here, also a victory. That's good for me, and good for my team. This season has been very nice."

With bonuses of ten, six, and four seconds on the line for the top three, Lutsenko also took the overall lead of the race, as Sam Bennett (Bora-Hansgrohe) and the other sprinters who had been up at the top of the general classification were dropped early on the final climb.

Ulissi is second overall, trailing Lutsenko by four seconds, with Prades third at six seconds. Nathan Haas (Katusha-Alpecin, who finished 13th, is fourth at 12 seconds.

With two flatter stages to come, Lutsenko is in the driving seat, though the small gaps mean the overall title could come into play in the intermediate sprints and on the tricky finale in Istanbul on Sunday.

This stage, though, was the only obvious general classification battleground, with the familiar finish up at Selcuk by the old house of the Virgin Mary.

There was an early fight for the breakaway and an early first-category climb saw Grega Bole (Bahrain-Merida), Diego Rubio (Burgos-BH), Jon Irisarri (Caja-Rural) and the Manzana Postobon duo of Yecid Sierra and Aldemar Reyes get away.

They established a lead of around three minutes but when it started to drop, three riders - Iljo Keisse (Quick-Step Floors), Preben Van Hecke (Sport Vlaanderen-Baloise), and Nikolay Mihaylov (Delko Marseille Provence KTM) - attacked and bridged across to make it a lead group of eight.

Most were caught on the draggy third-category climb that directly preceded the steeper haul to Selcuk, but Bole attacked for KOM points and briefly linked up with Rubio on the other side, though the peloton would begin the final climb as one.

UAE had ridden hard on the preceding climb and were again prominent on the lower slopes to Selcuk. There were no big attacks early on but the Delko team regularly upped the tempo - along with Sunweb's Louis Vervaecke and Bahrain's Ramunas Navardauskas - and the bunch quickly thinned out.

The first big move came from Caja Rural's Sergio Pardilla with around 3.5km to go. He never got far but hung on out front before being dragged back by BMC with 1.2km to go. At that point, Ulissi came through with teammate Kristijan Durasek - also a former overall winner of the race - and marshalled the front of the group, which was down to fewer than 20.

Matteo Fabbro (Katusha-Alpecin) put in a big attack in the final kilometre but he was dragged back by a Delko rider and the paced ebbed as Haas took to the front. Prades then began to make his way up, and just as he sprang out of the saddle, Ulissi did the same.

As he surged clear, it looked like déja-vu, but Lutsenko came storming up to punch the air and take control of the race.

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