Tour of Turkey: Sam Bennett wins stage 1

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Sam Bennett (Bora-Hansgrohe) claimed stage 1 at the Presidential Cycling Tour of Turkey in a close sprint finish ahead of Fabio Jakobsen (Deceuninck-QuickStep). Caleb Ewan (Lotto Soudal) finished third while Mark Cavendish (Dimension Data) sat up inside the final kilometre in his first race since abandoning Paris-Nice in March.

Bennett made use of a strong lead-out from QuickStep, coming around Jakobsen inside the final 100 metres to take the fifth win of his already successful season.

Only QuickStep were able to provide a prominent lead-out in the finale, with two riders supporting Jakobsen inside the final 500m. Bennett, who won twice in Paris-Nice and once at the UAE Tour had too much for the Dutch rider and eased through to take not just the win but also the first leader's jersey in this year's race.

Bennett has now won eight stages in the Tour of Turkey in the last three years.

"We were looking for QuickStep’s wheel but then it all came together at a good moment, before the last right-hander and the boys did a super job, I have to give them a lot of credit for today," Bennett said. 

"After my break I don’t really have the same condition but I know that, as a sprinter, you still have to get the results. I learnt a lot last year and matured a lot as a rider, and I hope to get better and better. As a sprinter you have to win if you’re good or bad. I dipped the form a little bit too much but it was enough for today.

"We’ll take each day as it comes. There’s a bit of pressure off now but we still want more wins."

The early part of the stage was marked by a six-rider break, consisting of Zhandos Bizhigitov (Astana), Alvaro Robredo (Burgos-BH), Lorenzo Fortunato (Neri), Emerson Oronte (Rally), Lindsay De Vylder (Sport Vlaanderen-Baloise) and Feritcan Samli (Turkey). The leaders established an advantage of over five minutes through the relatively flat parcours before the sprinters teams of QuickStep, Lotto Soudal and Dimension Data began to lead a chase.

There was a crash for Yousif Mirza (UAE Team Emirates) and Sebastian Mora (Caja Rural) inside the final 50 kilometres just as the pace began to rise. With less than 35km to go, only Samli and Oronte remained from the break, their advantage just over a minute.

The sprinters' teams took complete control inside the final 10km, even with a few rolling hills thrown in, as Bora, QuickStep and Dimension Data set the pace.

Leading into the sprint, only Jakobsen's team had a batch of riders on the front but even they were unable to stop Bennett from taking the win, with the Irishman once more delivering an important win to highlight his questionable non-selection ahead of this year's Giro d'Italia.

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