ProTeam Harm Vanhoucke third in queen stage Tour of Turkey

After three days for the sprinters, the climbers now had their say during the fourth day of racing at the Tour of Turkey. In the queen stage, the riders with GC ambitions had to show their cards because after a relatively flat start of over 100 kilometres, a tough final climb of seventeen kilometres towards Manisa would shake up the overall standings.

Lotto Soudal made sure youngster Harm Vanhoucke was in a perfect position to start the final climb. Both Caleb Ewan and Jasper De Buyst paced the peloton in the opening kilometres of the climb, which was drastically reduced. When the first attacks came at nine kilometres from the finish Jasper De Buyst's impressive work was done.

In a tactical final, the favourites for the stage victory all looked at each other when Eduardo Sepulveda attacked with about five kilometres to go. The Argentinean quickly took twenty seconds, a lead he would hang on to. In a select group including amongst others Vanhoucke and Quintana, there was no cooperation as they were left to ride for second place. Harm Vanhoucke was only outsprinted by Bevin and took a third place on the day. That way, Harm Vanhoucke climbs to fourth place in the general classification, 37 seconds behind leader Sepulveda.

"Actually, with a flat start it was a relatively easy stage. The most important thing was to be at the front towards the final climb. The team did a great job in keeping me at the front, we were already at the head of the bunch at about ten kilometres from the foot", Harm Vanhoucke said after the stage. "I started the climb in third position with Caleb Ewan and Jasper De Buyst in front, setting a high pace to go into the final with a small group. Jasper did a really good job until about nine kilometres from the finish, when the attacks started. However, the strong headwind on the climb made it difficult to create definitive gaps."

"At about five kilometres from the finish, a select group finally got away but on a flatter section the pace dropped again. A chasing group caught up, from which Sepulveda attacked. Unfortunately, we were all looking at each other and no one really took the initiative to close the gap. Eventually the chase picked up some pace, but the stage victory was gone. I was able to sprint to third place, but of course I would have liked to reward my teammates with a victory. That might have been possible if there had been more cooperation, but with this result I can certainly not be dissatisfied. Currently I am fourth in the general classification and in the last two difficult stages there might still be possibilities to move up," concludes Harm Vanhoucke.

Image: Photo News.