It was a tale fo two fortunes for the Yates brothers in today's queen stage of the Tour of Turkey. While Simon crashed out of the race with a broken collarbone, Adam took his biggest result ever when he finished second in the tough stage.

Adam Yates scored his biggest result to date as a first year professional with ORICA-GreenEDGE when he finished an impressive second on the queen stage at the Tour of Turkey, just 6” down on stage winner and new race leader Rein Tarramae (Cofidis). Yates now sits in second overall at 6” with Romain Hardy (Cofidis) in third at 38”.

“Our plan for the day was to save Simon [Yates] and Adam for the climb,” said Assistant Sport Director Julian Dean. “We wanted to see what they were capable of at the finish.”

Unfortunately, Simon Yates hit the pavement well before the final ascent of the day and was taken to hospital with a suspected broken collarbone. Post-race it was confirmed. S. Yates will be out of action for the time being with a broken left clavicle.

“We believed that Simon and Adam were equally capable on the summit finish today,” said Dean. “With Simon out of the race, Adam became the sole focus. It became less about what we were capable of doing and more about what we weren’t able to do with the two of them at the finish.”

After flat finishes on the two opening stages, stage three was the day for the general contenders to make their move. The peloton first encountered the category 1 Kuruovabeli climb followed by a short descent. The stage finished up the famous 11.5 kilometre Elmali climb, otherwise known as Turkey’s Alpe d’Huez.

A. Yates was the only rider able to respond when Taaramae attacked from a whittled down field with three kilometres to go on steepest part of the climb. The leading duo worked well together to distance themselves from what remained of a small group of climbing dignitaries. With no one in the chase group willing to set tempo, the pair slowly increased their lead as the kilometres ticked down. The leaders stayed together until 200 metres to go when Taaramae was able to outkick Yates to the finish line.

“I’ve been all right," Yates said. "I was the team’s plan B. Plan A was for my brother Simon but he crashed. I didn’t know if I could step up to that level but it took me a lot of work to get here.

"In the first climb, I could see Taaramäe was strong so I decided to follow him if he’d go in the last climb. I knew who he was and I chased him down.”

Although the queen stage created quite a shake-up in the overall standings, the final GC won’t be solidified until stage six when the riders face a summit finish in Selcuk. With no reason to hold back leading into the final two flat stages, any riders with overall ambitions will go full gas here.

As it stands, ORICA-GreenEDGE is happy with their young rider well-positioned on the overall. With each passing day, the Australian outfit will decide whether it continues to protect A. Yates’ overall position or if the plan will be to ride for stages.

“Adam is a young guy,” stated Dean. “He obviously had a good day today. We will wait to see how he feels tomorrow and how consistently he can ride big stages. From here we will go day by day. It’ll be great for us if he can hang on to his position and even better if he can go on to win.”