Tour of Turkey: Jasper Philipsen wins stage 3 sprint

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Jasper Philipsen (Alpecin-Fenix) emerged late to win stage 3 of the Tour of Turkey in Izmir, beating stage 2 winner Kaden Groves (BikeExchange-Jayco) and Miguel Angel Fernandez (Global 6 Cycling).

The Belgian had finished second in the sprints on each of the opening two stages, but he timed his effort perfectly this time, using a tailwind to go early and then come off Groves’ wheel.

Thanks to his win, Philipsen took the race leader’s jersey from Groves. He leads the Australian by two seconds, with Fernandez third overall at 18 seconds.

The Tour of Turkey heads into the mountains on stage 4 with a finish in Manisa, after a 9.6km climb at 7.7%.

“If I was second again today, it’d have been shit but two times second and a win is good,” Philipsen said.

“Maybe my sprint is not on the best level yet. But we’ve got some time to do some sprints and then go towards the Tour de France with some speed in our legs.”

Philipsen explained how he turned the tables on stage 2 winner Groves

“Today was the opposite of yesterday. I could come out of his wheel with enough speed. The wind was again a tailwind, so maybe I ran out of gears again, but it was all about speed.”

The 117.9km stage followed the Aegean coastline between Çeşme and İzmir.

The early break again included riders fighting for the mountains and sprints classifications. American Noah Granigan (Wildlife Generation) was on hand seeking points for the red mountains jersey and Vitaliy Buts (Sakarya BB) was chasing the white points jersey. They were joined by Peio Goikoetxea (Euskaltel-Esusaki), Umberto Poli (Novo Nordisk), Léo Bouvier (Bike Aid) and Scott McGill (Wildlife Generation).

The peloton kept them under control, their lead growing and expanding to around two minutes as the kilometres ticked down. Buts eased up after the early intermediate sprint but the other five riders pushed on, with Granigan first to the top of the categorised climb after 28km.

Lotto Soudal, Alpecin-Fenix and BikeExchange-Jayco led the peloton along the twisting coast road, with the break eventually falling apart in the final 30km. Goikoetxea crashed on a turn with 22km to go, with Bouvier and McGill the last to be caught with 14km to go. Ahmet Orken (Wildlife Generation) made a solo attack but was soon caught as the sprint teams preferred for the finish.

Uno-X took control with five kilometres to go and Israel-PremierTech and Eolo-Kometa joined them. A crash saw Jay Vine (Alpecin-Fenix) and others go down inside the final three kilometres but the sprint teams were all up front.

Team DSM tried to take control in the final kilometre for Alberto Dainese, but the road was wide, allowing their rivals to move up with the help of a tailwind.

Groves launched his sprint early but Philipsen was on his wheel and kicked hard to come around him and hit the line first.

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