Mark Cavendish wins final stage of Tour of Turkey

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Mark Cavendish (Deceuninck-QuickStep) landed his fourth stage win of the Presidential Cycling Tour of Turkey in another sprint finish on the final day, while Jose Manuel Diaz (Delko) held on for overall victory.

After missing out to Jasper Philipsen (Alpecin-Fenix) in the previous two bunch sprints, Cavendish had the edge on Sunday, narrowly beating the Belgian to the line in what was a nervous, technical finale.

Cavendish stayed glued to Philipsen’s wheel as Kristoffer Halvorsen’s Uno-X team and Andre Greipel’s Israel-StartUp Nation led out the sprint, then came around him on the right-hand side of the road to lunge to the to line and just about take victory.

Diaz finished safely in the peloton after his Delko team had successfully defended his slender lead on GC.

“I’m very happy for this stage. It was a really difficult stage because it was really difficult controlling the race. There were a lot of attacks,” said Diaz.

“Finally one breakaway got away with my teammate, Delio Fernandez, who was seventh on GC, so for us it was perfect.”

That ten-man group featuring Fernandez was eventually caught by the peloton just in time for the final climb, 19km from the finish, where Diaz and Delko were again out under pressure.

“On the last climb, there was one rider from Caja Rural [Jhohan Garcia] who was fourth on GC who attacked,” Diaz said.

Garcia had Danilo Celano (Sapura) and Javier Romo (Astana-Premier Tech) for company, and forced Delko back on to the back foot, but the team did everything they needed to do in the chase and brought them back with 2km to go. “The team controlled him perfectly,” said Diaz.

Despite the work from his Alpecin-Fenix teammates to bring back the earlier attack featuring Fernandez, Jay Vine was unable either to make a significant attack or gain any more time in the intermediate sprint, and he crashed around a tight corner 2km from the line.

Thankfully for him, as the crash was inside the final 3km, he did not lose any time, meaning he finishes in second overall, just one tantalising second behind Diaz.

For Cavendish, this stage was the perfect end to what has been a stunning comeback. He again rode smartly and drew upon his experience in the final, picking the right wheel to follow and timing his sprint to perfection to pass Philipsen just in time for the finish line.

How it unfolded

Just one second separated overall leader Jose Manuel Diaz and his nearest challenger Jay Vine, setting the stage for a tense final day of racing.

Although the parcours was mostly flat, a category two climb 19km from the finish provided a chance for a potential shake-up at the top of the GC, especially with the situation being so close.

Before that, an intermediate sprint 23km into the stage was to be the first key battleground for the finale of the GC race. After being caught sleeping yesterday to allow Vine to gain three seconds, Alpecin-Fenix were determined not to make a similar mistake again today, and fired riders up the road in an attempt to avoid a repeat of yesterday’s mistake.

Mauro Finetto (Delko) succeeded in doing so, and gained the maximum seconds, while Jetse Bol (Burgos-BH) and Jasper Philipsen (Alpecin-Fenix) swept up the rest — the latter increasing his lead in the points classification. 

With the threat of this intermediate sprint successfully neutralised, the escapees dropped back into the peloton and the race came back together.

After several more attempts by riders to form a breakaway group (during which time Vitaly Buts (Salcano Sakaraya BB) gained maximum points over the first climb of the day, to seal victory in the King of the Mountains classification, eventually a ten-man group went clear.

That group consisted of: Samuele Rivi (Eolo-Kometa), Stijn Steels (Deceuninck-Quick Step), Sean de Bie (Bingoal), Davide Cimolai (Israel-StartUp Nation), Alessandro Tonelli, Mirko Maestri (both Bardiani-CSF-Faizane), Sergey Tvetcov (Wildlife Generation), Erik Resell (UnoX), Willie Smit (Burgos) and Delio Fernandez (Delko).

By placing Fernandez in this group, Delko played their second successful ploy of the day. At just 33 seconds down in GC in seventh on GC, Fernandez’s presence obliged both Alpecin-Fenix and Androni Giocattoli-Sidermec to chase in order to protect the podium places of Vine and Eduardo Sepulveda respectively, while Delko were entitled to sit back and rest.

After a long chase, the break was eventually brought back 27km from the finish, with the exception of Smit, who attacked the others. Smit was joined by Francesco Gavazzi (Eolo-Kometa), who attacked out of the peloton once the rest of the break was caught, and then Javier Romo (Astana-Premier Tech) and Kevin Rivera (Bardiani-CSF-Faizane).

This quartet reached the foot of the climb together, where Danilo Celano (Sapura) and, significantly, Jhojan Garcia (Caja Rural-Seguros RGA) bridged up to them. In fourth overall, at 25 seconds behind Diaz, Garcia posed a serious threat on GC, and with Celano managed to bridge up to and pass the breakaway, taking just Romo with him.

That trio crested the top of the climb with a small advantage of about fifteen seconds, with Delko leading the chase intent of defending Diaz’s overall lead.

There was never a sense of panic in the peloton, and as the sprinters’ teams joined Delko at the front of the peloton in anticipation of a sprint finish, the catch became inevitable.

Uno-X attempted a surprise move 4km from the finish as one domestique launched their leader Anthon Charmig (who was sixth on GC at 30 seconds) up the road, but it was short-lived. He was brought back shortly before the leading trio were also reeled in, leading to a sprint finish won by Cavendish.