Tour of Turkey: Frank van den Broek takes Queen stage and overall lead

Frank van den Broek won stage 6 of the Tour of Turkey on the 14km Spil Dağı climb, giving Dsm-firmenich PostNL their fourth stage win of the race and van den Broek the race lead.

The 23-year-old Dutch rider sat behind Paul Double (Polti Kometa) as the British rider led in the final two kilometres and closed down later attacker Merhawi Kudus (Terengganu Cycling Team). Double then faded in sight of the finish line and van den Broek surged to the line to hold off Kudus.

Thanks to time bonuses, Van den Broek also took the overall race lead, four seconds ahead of Kudus and nine seconds ahead of Double, with just two flat stages to race until the finish in Istanbul on Saturday.

Five riders formed the early break of the 160.1km stage, with Negasi Haylu Abreha (Q36.5) the last to be caught as his teammate Filippo Conca attacked and joined him with ten kilometres to climb.

Conca was then joined by Samuele Zoccarato (VF Group-Bardiani CSF-Faizanè) but Harold Lopez (Astana Qazaqstan) soon jumped across and surged then surged away.

Merhawi Kudus (Terengganu Cycling Team) attacked from the reduced front group to catch and pass Lopez on the steepest section of the climb. Britain’s Paul Double (Polti Kometa) led the chase across with Frank van den Broek (Dsm-firmenich PostNL) but generously rode on the front, allowing van den Broek to have his effort for the finish.

Van den Broek is a WorldTour neo-pro but earned his place in Dsm-firmenich PostNL’s squad by winning a stage at the 2023 Tour of Qinghai Lake and impressive rides in other races, including victory in the Ronde de l'Oise stage race in France.

“We’ve already won three stages and now a fourth, it’s amazing,” van den Broek said.

“I didn’t expect to win but the team put a lot of trust in me, they did a lot of work in the beginning of the stage and Julius van den Berg did a lot of work on the front of the peloton, so that gave me a lot of confidence. I’m very happy to win.”

He was confident of his chances after surviving the 10% section of the climb and staying with Double as he chased down Kudus.

I knew I had a chance to win when we went over the steepest part of the climb. It was a kind of flat-run-in and I knew I had an OK sprint,” Van den Broek said.

“The next two days are again a big chance for us with Fabio Jakobsen and our sprint train.

“It should hopefully be pretty easy for me to hold onto the leader’s jersey. I just need to finish in the main bunch. I also think I can even help with the leadouts. We’ll see.”

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