Tour of Turkey: Sepulveda wins stage 4 summit finish at Manisa

April 13, 2022 admin-dominor

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Eduardo Sepulveda wins stage 4 of the Tour of Turkey (Image credit: Getty)

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Jasper De Buyst leads the peloton on the final cliimb — Jasper De Buyst leads at the base of the final climb. (Image credit: Getty)

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Nairo Quintana Tour of Turkey — Nairo Quintana on the final climb to Manisa. (Image credit: Getty)

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Tour of Turkey 2022 — Jay Vine on the offensive on the final climb (Image credit: Getty)

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Eduardo Sepulveda (Drone Hopper-Androni) won stage 4 of the Tour of Turkey after he attacked alone 4.5km from the top of the final climb to Manisa. The Argentinian took advantage of a lull in the leading group to forge clear, but he proceeded to show his strength by fending off the chasers on the steepest section of the ascent.

Patrick Bevin (Israel Premier Tech) performed the bulk of the chasing behind, and he won the sprint for second place ahead of Harm Vanhoucke (Lotto Soudal).

Nairo Quintana (Arkea-Samsic) launched a series of accelerations earlier on the climb, but he was unable to gain any traction, while Jay Vine (Alpecin-Fenix) also caught the eye as the group of favourites was whittled down to its bare bones.

Sepulveda takes over the race lead from Jasper Philipsen (Alpecin-Fenix), and he leads Bevin by 14 seconds in the general classification, with Vine third at 25 seconds.

“Since the beginning of the year, the team told me I would be coming here and I was looking for a good result on this stage,” said Sepulveda. “I won and I don’t believe it, but I’m very happy. I’ve put in a lot of years of work and it paid off.”

Sepulveda acknowledged that Quintana was the pre-race favourite, but he sensed an opportunity when he was among the ten or so riders to withstand the Colombian’s initial volley of attacks.

“I knew he was the strongest rider but sadly for him he crashed two days ago, and so today was a more open race,” Sepulveda said. “The attacks started before mine, and I was a little bit full gas. But when I saw the moment to attack, I went for it, and I kept a good speed to the finish.”

Sepulveda has twice finished on the podium of the Tour of Turkey, but now he is on the cusp of overall victory, even if he was circumspect about his chances.

“I don’t know, there are still four days to go,” he said. “There were also a lot of crashes yesterday, and I fell two times. I had a little pain, but I won today so I’m happy.”

More to follow…

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