Caleb Ewan wins opening stage at Tour of Turkey

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Australia’s Caleb Ewan returned to a winning mood almost one month after his season was put on a halt due to sickness one week before Milan-San Remo, which was his big goal of the first part of 2022. He won stage 1 of the 57th Tour of Turkey in bunch sprint finish ahead of Belgium’s Jasper Philipsen and his compatriot Kaden Groves.

“It’s actually fantastic to win this stage," Ewan reacted. “I didn’t know what to expect because I came back from being sick. At the start of the stage I didn’t feel so good. I kept going and I started to feel better and better. On the climb, I felt reasonably comfortable. My team at the end did a great job. I thought they went too early. But they did it perfectly. Jasper [de Buyst] dropped me exactly where I had to be.”

Philipsen also benefited from a great teamwork but was harmed by a crash in the downhill. He told Cyclingnews after the race that it was just bruises and nothing serious. 

Third placed Groves commented, “I can’t be too disappointed. We’ve got a good field here this year. Good job by the boys, positioning by me wasn’t ideal but the legs are decent and I’m looking forward to the coming stages."

Ewan added, “I was obviously disappointed to miss Milan-San Remo and some of the Belgian classics, but there’s more goals this season and the Giro is one of them. It’s important to do well here for my confidence ahead of the Giro. I really like to come here. I’ve done the Tour of Turkey a few times and I had a good one with two stage wins the last time I came in 2019. I always want to win as much as I can when I come to a stage race.”

How it unfolded

Turkish rider Halil Dogan of BikeAid was first to attack from the gun. Five riders joined him to make the day’s breakaway: Julen Irizar (Euskaltel), Jonathan Clarke (Wildlife Generation), Vitaliy Buts (Sakarya), Burak Abay (Spor Toto) and Abram Stockman (Saris Rouvy). 

After their advantage reached five minutes, the teams of the sprinters, mainly Alpecin-Fenix, Bora-Hansgrohe, BikeExchange-Jayco and Israel-Premier Tech got organised to maintain the time gap around three minutes. Lotto-Soudal upped the tempo while approaching the 50km to go mark where the deficit of the peloton became less than one minute.

Racing for the two subsidiary classifications, Buts took the white jersey of the Treasures of Turkey Sprints as he passed first at km 87 and grabbed five points in the King of the Mountains competition before the regrouping with 35km remaining. 

Arkea-Samsic took control of the peloton up the 4km long climb whose summit was located 29km before the end. Therefore Nicolas Edet, the winner of the climbers’ classification at the 2013 Vuelta a España, scored five KOM, just like Buts but the Frenchman was awarded the red jersey at the benefice of highest categorized climb.

Lots of action took place in the downhill with Sean Bennett looking for glory within 20km to go and a few crashes happening at the back of the reduced pack. The American from China Glory surrendered 5km before the line. 

Patrick Bevin of Israel-Premier Tech tried to escape for the second time but it was eventually a bunch sprint in the coastal town of Kusadasi. 

Arkea-Samsic gave a strong lead-out to Nacer Bouhanni but it was Ewan who came out of the box in a perfect timing to beat Philipsen and Kaden Groves.

Ewan leads the Tour of Turkey for the first time in his career at his first participation. He’ll wear the turquoise jersey on stage 2 from Selçuk to Alaçati.