Stage set for Tour of Türkiye
ISTANBUL
The Presidential Cycling Tour of Türkiye (TUR) will start on Oct.8 in Alanya with the participation of 25 professional cycling teams, with greater enthusiasm on the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Turkish Republic.
Turkish cycling’s premier event was postponed from its original date, April 23-30, due to the devastating earthquakes that hit Türkiye’s south on Feb. 6.
This year’s eight-stage edition will take the peloton on a journey through the Mediterranean and Aegean coastlines to reach the 8,000-year-old historic peninsula of Istanbul for the grand finale of the cross-continental route.
The competition will start with a 135km flat stage from Alanya to Antalya and continue along the Mediterranean shore with the 166.5km second stage between Kemer and Kalkan.
The third stage belongs to the climbers, as the 104km route around Fethiye end at the summit of Babadağ. The 18.9km final climb will take the peloton from the sea level to an altitude of 1,937 meters, with an average slope of 10.8 percent, favoring the likes of UAE Team’s Finn Fisher-Black and Jay Vine.
The stage also includes a first category climb before the ultimate challenge Babadağ offers.
Stage 4 from Fethiye to Marmaris will favor sprinters, while the 180km fifth stage from Marmaris to Bodrum includes one first category climb on a hilly route.
The Aegean part of the TUR will conclude with Bodrum-Selçuk and Selçuk-İzmir stages, before the peloton moves to Istanbul.
The final stage, a 130.5km route that starts and finishes in the historic Sultanahmet Square, will feature two intercontinental crossings: From Europe to Asia via the July 15 Martyrs Bridge and from Asia to Europe through the Eurasia Tunnel.
The participants of the Tour of Türkiye this year include four World Tour teams: UAE Team Emirates, Alpecin-Deceuninck, Bora Hansgrohe and Astana Kazakhstan.
A rider to be closely watched will be Mark Cavendish, who announced on Oct. 4 that he had extended his retirement for another year with his team Astana.
Cavendish will be back in Türkiye after TUR 2021, where he showed that he can still win stages despite those who say he should retire.
Cavendish, after being diagnosed with the Epstein-Barr virus in 2017 and clinical depression in 2018 made a comeback in Türkiye in 2021 by winning four stages in April, before going to the Tour De France at the age of 36.
In France, the British rider won three stages, taking his total Tour stage wins to 34 to equal Belgian cycling legend Eddy Merckx's record.
Cavendish won a total of 11 stages in the TUR in 2014, 2015 and 2021, and will compete in this year’s edition to take sole possession of the TUR’s stage wins record, which he currently shares with Andre Greipel.