Tour of Turkey: Arvid de Kleijn wins photo-finish sprint on stage 1

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Arvid de Kleijn (Rally Cycling) won the shortened 72.4km opening stage of the Tour of Turkey, beating Kristoffer Halvorsen (Uno-X) in a close shoulder-to-shoulder sprint.

The two emerged clear of the other sprinters out of the final corner following a hectic final two kilometres in the centre of Konya, with the photo-finish needed to declare de Kleijn the winner. He leads Halvorsen by four seconds in the overall classification thanks to the time bonuses awarded at the finish.

Pierre Barbier (Delko) finished third a few metres behind, while Mark Cavendish (Deceuninck-QuickStep) came up from behind to finish fourth, with Jasper Philipsen (Alpecin-Fenix) fifth and Andre Greipel (Israel Start-Up Nation) sixth. 

It was Rally Cycling’s first win of the 2021 European campaign. The American ProTeam has bigger ambitions this season, with Dutchman de Kleijn one of several new signings for 2021 along with former WorldTour riders Ben King and Joey Rosskopf.

Fabio Jakobsen (Deceuninck-QuickStep) made his return to racing in Turkey, eight months after his terrible crash at the Tour de Pologne, with a number of riders giving him a warm and emotional welcome back to the peloton. He did not contrast the sprint, happy to finish the stage with little problem.   

How it unfolded

Following the cancellation of the opening stage due to snow, the Tour of Turkey caravan transferred southwest to Konya for the reduced 72.4km stage. 

The roads were dry but the skies were grey and the air cold, with riders wrapped up at the start with temperatures of just 5 centigrade and snow along the roadside. 

There were few attacks in the early kilometres of the out and back loop around the city and Sean De Bie (Bingoal Pauwels Sauces) and Ivar Slik (Abloc) were allowed to go away and share the spoils out on the road.

De Bie won the intermediate sprint after 36km and then allowed Slik to take the King of the Mountains sprint on a rolling highway after 52km.

The peloton awoke and upped the speed in the final 20km, with Israel Start-Up Nation, Deceuninck-QuickStep, Astana and Alpecin-Fenix leading the chase. 

De Bie and Slik were swept up with seven kilometres as the sprint teams prepared for the fast finish into the centre of Konya. A sweeping turn at three kilometres to go and a series of bridges and underpasses made positioning vital. 

Uno-X and Deceuninck-QuickStep seem best placed but a crash at 1.5km to go before a late right turn shuffled the pack. Uno-X lead into the final sweeping left turn to set up Halvorsen, with de Kleijn just behind him. 

Cavendish was forced to break after other riders mis-judged the final corner and that allowed Halvorsen and de Kleijn to open a gap. 

Halvorsen led out and seemed set to win only for de Kleijn to come up alongside him in sight of the line and then beat him with a slightly better bike throw.       

Thanks to his win, de Kleijn will wear the turquoise Tour of Turkey leader’s jersey during stage 2 on Monday.