Tour of Turkey opens with longest stage and fast sprint finale

The 2022 Presidential Cycling Tour of Turkey began today with a tough 207km opener that included three categorized climbs before the finish and was peppered with numerous crashes before a fast and technical bunch sprint wrapped up the day’s proceedings.

Andrea Peron:

“It was a classic Tour of Turkey stage today, frantic and with quite a few crashes throughout the day and I’m happy that I managed to avoid them and stay upright. The pace was high throughout, and I’m pleased to have stayed up there over the final climb which was full gas and that’s a good sign for the week to come, but I lost touch just before the sprint.”

“It was a fast downhill run to the finish, and I ended up boxed in going into the last kilometer and with this final it was hard to move back up to the front to regain a good position for the sprint, but we’ve got seven more days of racing to come and overall, I’m happy to come through today in decent shape.”

General Manager Vassili Davidenko:

“It was a long stage to start the race with and it didn’t really let up after the break went. We wanted the guys to sit tight in the bunch with the intention of looking after Andrea, but unfortunately both Filippo and Umberto were both involved in crashes and slipped out of the group, but both are ok and that’s the main thing.”

“Andrea did well to stay among the leaders over the climbs at the end as some team’s tried to force the selection and then the descent to the finish was extremely fast, but Andrea, David, Peter and Sam all held on to finish in the bunch and we’re already focused on tomorrow now.”