Sepulveda wins ‘Queen Stage’ of Tour of Turkey

Eduardo Sepulveda from the Drone Hopper-Androni team won the 57th Tour of Turkey's Stage four, which is known as the "Queen Stage" and is the most challenging lap between the western province of İzmir and Mount Spil in the neighboring province of Manisa, on April 13.

"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 the Argentinian cyclist who took over the race lead from Jasper Philipsen from the Alpecin-Fenix team.

"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 has finally paid off."

Patrick Bevin from the Israel Premier Tech team won the sprint for second place ahead of Harm Vanhoucke from the Lotto Soudal team.

"Sepuldeva will take a big advantage to the last four stages of the Tour of Turkey," TRT commentators said amid the broadcast of the race.

Nairo Quintana (Arkea-Samsic) launched a series of accelerations earlier on the climb, but he was unable to gain any traction. When asked about his chance at the overall victory in the Tour of Turkey, Sepulveda said, "I don't know; there are still four days to go. There were also a lot of crashes yesterday [April 12], and I fell two times. I had a little pain, but I won today [yesterday], so I'm happy."

The 57th Tour of Turkey started on April 11 with the first-day stage between two Aegean tourism hubs, Bodrum and Kuşadası, with 175 cyclists from 25 teams from 14 countries.

On the fourth day of the race, cyclists pedaled a 147-kilometers route to reach Mount Spil.

On April 14, a 192-kilometer stage between Manisa and the famous Ayvalık district in the northwestern province of Balıkesir will be run.

The Çanakkale 1915 bridge,...