Tour of Turkey: Fabio Jakobsen takes first win of 2024 on stage 1

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Cavendish distanced in final sprint

ANTALYA TURKIYE APRIL 21 The 59th edition of the Tour of Turkiye kicks off in the Mediterranean resort city of Antalya Turkiye on April 21 2024 The 2024 Presidential Cycling Tour of Turkiye Tour of Turkiye started in Antalya with the participation of 175 athletes from 25 teams The first stage of TUR 2024 was won by Fabio Jakobsen the Dutch rider of the DsmFirmenich PostNL team Photo by Harun OzalpAnadolu via Getty Images
(Image credit: Getty Images)

Fabio Jakobsen (dsm-firmenich-PostNL) took his first win of 2024 at the Presidential Tour of Turkey in Antalya, where the Belgian rider beat Sasha Weemaes (Bingoal WB) into second place with Simon Dehairs (Alpecin-Deceuninck) claiming third.

The Tour of Turkey has been heavily anticipated as a test of form for a returning Mark Cavendish, and Astana-Qazaqstan were dominant at the front of the peloton in the final kilometres alongside Alpecin-Pimapen - the temporarily renamed Alpecin-Deceuninck for the duration of the Tour of Turkey.

However, Mark Cavendish was distanced from the front of the sprint and boxed in within the final few hundred metres, as Alpecin-Pimapen inadvertently positioned Fabio Jakobsen for a perfect sprint into the finish line. 

Jakobsen stretched out a relatively easy lead over Belgian sprinter Sasha Weemaes, while Alpecin-Pimapen’s Simon Dehairs took third.

The 134.7km stage from Antalya to Antalya was a relatively orderly day for the sprinters from the outset. The early kilometres saw a breakaway form consisting of Marcel Camprubí (Q36.5 Pro Cycling), Jambaljamts Sainbayar (Burgos - BH), Filippo Ridolfo (Novo Nordisk), Julian Borresch (REMBE Pro Cycling Team Sauerland), Aljaz Turk (Adria Mobil), Tomasz Budzinski (Mazowsze Serce Polski) and Emre Yuca (Sakarya BB).

“Today, we managed to stay together in a hectic final, and everybody helped me really well, especially Bram [Welten] and Toby [Andresen] at the end,” Jakobsen said after the race finished.

“I am standing here as a happy guy to take the win for the team.”

Asked whether he was confident ahead of the race, Jakobsen said, “You never know for sure, but we always give 100%, and I did a good training camp after the start of the season in Spain to really prepare myself for this race and also towards the Giro d'Italia.”

Jakobsen reflected on the significance of the race to him. “It's just a really special race. I remember the first win I took here was against this and Bennett and Cavendish, who back then were the best printers in the world. And then this was my first race back together with Mark Cavendish after the crash in Poland.

“It’s nice to be back here again.”

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Peter Stuart
Peter Stuart
Editor

Peter Stuart has been the editor of Cyclingnews since March 2022, overseeing editorial output across all of Cyclingnews' digital touchpoints.


Before joining Cyclingnews, Peter was the digital editor of Rouleur magazine. Starting life as a freelance feature writer, with bylines in The Times and The Telegraph, he first entered cycling journalism in 2012, joining Cyclist magazine as staff writer. Peter has a background as an international rower, representing Great Britain at Under-23 level and at the Junior Rowing World Championships.

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