Harold Martín López scored XDS-Astana’s second mountain stage victory of the week at the Tour of Turkey, leading home teammate and race leader Wout Poels for a one-two finish in Selçuk.
The Colombian attacked from an elite GC group to catch and pass solo attacker Giovanni Carboni (Unibet Tietema Rockets) with 1.1km left to run of the 156km stage. Further back, Poels also jumped from the group to catch and pass Carboni inside the final kilometre.
The Dutchman crossed the line in second place, while Johannes Kulset (Uno-X Mobility) rounded out the podium.
Picnic-PostNL’s GC hopefuls Guillermo Juan Martinez and Frank van den Broek were unable to make an impression on XDS-Astana despite working hard on the lead-in to the closing 4.2km, 8.4% climb.
A group of around 25 riders hit the final climb of the day after a group of 12 went clear on the previous climb (3.6km at 7.9%) inside the closing 20km. Jakub Otruba (Caja Rural-Seguros RGA) struck out alone at the front on the lead-in to the final climb.
The Czech rider went clear with 8km to go and battled on alone up the mountain, holding a 25-second lead at the start of the ascent. However, with moves being made behind, he couldn’t hold off the GC attackers.
Carboni made his move at 2km to go and passed Otruba 500 metres later, but López and Poels were on hand to prevent the Italian from taking the victory.
Poels and López remain at the top of the overall standings heading into the weekend’s concluding stages.
Results
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