Kristian Sbaragli continued his steady progress towards the sprinting elite when he finished third behind Elia Viviani and Mark Cavendish in today's fifth stage of the Tour of Turkey. With the stage being a lot harder in some of the previous sprint stages, he had marked it out as a clear target and made use of his MTN-Qhubeka team to tire out the pure sprinters before reaching his target of a podium spot.

The 5th stage of the Tour of Turkey ended in another bunch sprint with Elia Viviani (Cannondale) managing to beat Mark Cavendish (Omega Pharma – Quickstep) for the stage honours. The ever impressive Kristian Sbaragli (MTN-Qhubeka) continued to show good form and took 3rd place in the sprint.

The stage as a whole was a great one for Team MTN-Qhubeka p/b Samsung as they came out and showed good intent right from the gun. The early break went after just 13km and Dennis van Niekerk (MTN-Qhubeka) would be one of the 9 aggressors to get away. The escapees built up a lead of just over 4 minutes before Cofidis and Quickstep began to reel them in.

With 8km to go the break was caught and straight away, Youcef Reguigui (MTN-Qhubeka) put in a solo attack. He was not able to get away but the effort really strung out the peloton. A Torku and Bardiani rider were next to attack at 7km to go and Merhawi Kudus (MTN-Qhubeka) would follow the 2 riders. The trio built up a 10″ lead but the GC threat that Kudus posed meant that Cofidis rode full gas to bring them back. With 4km to go they were eventually caught.

Racing towards the line the speed was really high and all looked to be in favour of Cavendish once again. Reguigui would put in an amazing effort over the final kilometers to bring Sbaragli from mid peloton and dropped him off on the wheel of Viviani with a kilometer to go. As the sprint opened up Viviani was able to just get ahead of Cavendish while Sbaragli finished hot on their heels in 3rd. Kudus would finish in 26th place and this was enough to also move him up one place on GC from 5th to 4th on a stage placings count back.

“It’s an excellent result," Sbaragli said. "I was hoping to do well yesterday and today because they were sprints at the end of demanding courses. In a mass sprint with a whole bunch, I can place myself well but not in the top three so I need for the best sprinters to be worn out to express myself best.

"Yesterday I was close (4th) and today I reached my goal of a top three finish with the help of a highly motivated team. Merhawi Kudus and Youcef Reguigui attacked in the finale to toughen the race. Tomorrow, we’ll do our utmost to place Kudus on the final podium.”

"We tried to create a selection over the last part of the stage with the team and it seemed to work well. All the guys worked really well together and we knew iIcould possibly get a podium after such a hard stage and we got it. The sprint was really fast and Viviani was strongest today but I am very happy with my 3rd place."