Przemyslaw Niemiec (Lampre-Merida) became a hugely surprising winner of the first stage of the Tour of Turkey when he claimed a marvelous solo win in Instanbul. Having attacked out of the early breakaway, he benefited from a strange tactical game between the sprint teams and managed to hold the main group off by 16 seconds to take the win and the first leader’s jersey. Marco Zanotti (Parkhotel) won the sprint for third after Jose Goncalves (Caja Rural) had made a late attack to take second.

With just 8 major wins during his long career, Przemyslaw Niemiec has never been a prolific winner. Known as a climber, his victories have all come on days with a significant amount of climbing and so he was one of the most unlikely winners of the first stage of the Tour of Turkey. However, the Pole defied all expectations by riding to a solo win in Istanbul and moving into the race lead after a very strange opening stage.

The route had an early category 3 climb and a short, cobbled climb just 1km from the flat finish but the stage was expected to be one for the puncheurs or strong sprinters, not for a pure climber like Niemiec. However, the Pole used the early climb to join a five-rider breakaway and what looked like a futile attempt ended up being the winning move.

Niemiec had Lluis Mas (Caja Rural), Remy Di Gregorio (Delko), Nikita Stalnov (Astana) and Adam Hansen (Lotto Soudal) for company in the break but when CCC and Southeast started to chase and their two-minute advantage was melting away, it looked like it was all over. As the peloton entered the final 45km, the gap had dropped to less than a minute and the escapees quickly realized that it was mission impossible. They decided to wait for the peloton after some of the riders had skipped some turns for a while. However, Niemiec refused to give up and he launched a solo attack with 39km to go.

Knowing that the escapees were waiting, CCC and Southeast stopped their chase effort and so Niemiec quickly gained a lot of time. At the same time, it took a long time to bring the four chasers back but with 35km to go, they were back in the fold. At this point, the gap had gone out to 1.30.

Entering the final 30km, the gap was already 2.40 and this prompted Southeast to resume their chase. However, there work had no effect and six kilometres later, the gap had gone out to 3 minutes.

Southeast asked Lotto Soudal for some help but the Belgian team refused to lend them a hand and so the gap was a massive 3.15 with 20km to go. That was the signal for the Italian team to up the pace and they slowly started to bring Niemiec back. Southeast shaved 30 seconds off the advantage during the next five kilometres but it was still 2.45 with 15km to go.

10km from the finish, the situation finally changed when CCC and Frederik Frison (Lotto Soudal) started work with the Southeast riders and this had an effect. However, Niemiec was still 2 minutes ahead with 7.5km to go.

Pablo Urtasun (Funvic) launched an attack on a small climb and immediately got a nice advantage. However, he was quickly brought back by Frison, Gert Dockx (Lotto Soudal) and a Southeast rider.

Adam Hansen and Kris Boeckmans took a turn for Lotto Soudal before Parkhotel hit the front with several riders. However, the gap was still 1.10 with 3km to go.

Hansen took a turn before André Greipel did a massive job as Lotto Soudal was apparently riding for Kris Boeckmans. He did a massive job but it was all too late.

Roth hit the front just before they entered the cobbled climb in the finale where Niemiec’s teammates Roberto Ferrari and Sacha Modolo did an excellent job by moving to the front to slow the peloton down on the narrow road. Jose Goncalves surged past and while Lotto Soudal started to chase with Greg Henderson, the Portuguese powered clear, 50 second sbehind Niemiec.

Goncalves had a big gap as he reached the top of the climb but at that point Niemiec was already on the finishing straight. He had plenty of time to celebrate his win, with Goncalves reaching the finish 11 seconds later. Marco Zanotti beat Mauro Finetto (Uniero) in the sprint for third, 16 seconds behind the lone winner.

With the victory, Niemiec moves into the race lead with an 11-second lead over Goncalves as there are no bonus seconds in the race. He faces a tough first day in the jersey as stage 2 is the first mountain stage of the race. It is held on a difficult circuit in Kapadokya where the riders will face a tough 7.9km climb that averages 3.9%. They will do four full laps of the circuit before they will tackle the climb for a fifth and final time and as the finish line is located at the top, it is the first chance for the climbers to make a difference in this year’s race.

A tricky opening stage

The 52nd edition of the Tour of Turkey kicked off with a 129.2km stage that started and finished in Istanbul. After crossing the Bosporus Straits, the riders headed into the hills on the northeastern outskirts where they tackled an early category 3 climb before they returned to the city centre. Here they did three laps of a flat 15.3km circuit before they tackled the final 1.7km that led to the finish. They consisted of a short cobbled climb on a narrow road that led to 700m of false flat in what was a very technical and difficult finale.

The riders had excellent sunshine as they took the start in Istanbul at 11.40 local time. However, it was a dramatic opening since there were several crashes in the early part of the race. Carlos Barbero was down right from the start and had to leave the race with what looked like a broken collarbone. Later Davide Rebellin also hit the deck and when a big crash also involved André Greipel (Lotto Soudal), the race was neutralized.

A front quartet is formed

The race was restarted 113km to the finish, and the first 10km was a festival of attack. Alessandro Malaguti (Uniero) briefly appeared to having created a key gap, but he was brought back as the attacking continued relentlessly.

When the climbing started after 10km of racing, Remy Di Gregorio (Delko) and Jose Goncalves (Caja Rural) surged clear. Przemyslaw Niemiec (Lampre-Merida) quickly bridged the gap and later Nikita Stalnov (Astana) also made contact, creating a front quartet. Further back, the attacking continued and while Greipel dropped back to his team car, Simone Ravanelli (Uniero) took off in pursuit.

Hansen and Mas take off

The pace finally dropped as Lotto Soudal gathered their troops on the front and the gap quickly went out to 1.05 as they entered the final 100km. However, as they hit the only categorized climb, the attacking started again when a Torku rider surged clear.

Frederik Frison (Lotto Soudal) started to chase but unintentionally he created a small group which quickly caught Ravanelli. From that group, Adam Hansen (Lotto Soudal) and Lluis Mas (Caja Rural) moved clear as the climb got steeper and while the rest of the group was caught, that pair started to approach the leaders. Meanwhile, Kris Boeckmans had a mechanical.

Mechanical for Goncalves

In the front group, the battle for the KOM points started, and it was Di Gregorio who attacked from afar. Stalnov tried to respond but he had to settle for second while Niemiec crossed the line in third. Disaster struck for Goncalves as he had a mechanical and he could only watch while Mas and Hansen rode past, with Mas picking up the final point on offer.

In the peloton, there were lots of attacks on the climb and it was a four-rider chase group with Nikolay Mihaylov (CCC), Giovanni Carboni (Uniero), Nazim Bakirci (Torku) and Magno Prado (Funvic) that gathered. While Mas and Hansen rejoined the leaders, they found themselves 1.10 behind the front quintet with 90km to go.

Southeast start to chase

The peloton had already lost 2.15 and this prompted Southeast to organize a chase. The entire team gathered on the front and while they kept the gap stable around the 2-minute mark, the chasers started to lose ground. When they were 1.30 behind the leaders, they decided to wait for the peloton.

After a moment of calmness, the front group reached the intermediate sprint where Stalnov tried to attack from afar. Hansen was quick to respond, catching the Kazakh and sprinting past him to pick up 3 bonus seconds. Di Gregorio was third across the line.

CCC come to the fore

After the sprint, the group again started to cooperate and they were still 2 minutes ahead of the peloton when they returned to Europe via the Bosphorus Bridge with 70km to go. Moments later they contested the Turkish Beauty Sprint where Mas easily accelerated to cross the line in first position, followed by Di Gregorio and Niemiec.

Entering the final 60km, CCC started to chase hard and the Polish team and Southeast managed to reduce the gap to 1.30 in just five kilometres. Meanwhile, Alan Banaszek (Verva), Riccardo Stacchiotti (Nippo) and Francisco Chamorro (Funvic) all went down in two separate crashes but they were quickly back on their bikes. As the gap continued to come down, the escapees soon decided to wait which prompted Niemiec to make the race-winning move.