Christian Bagatin (MBH Bank CSB Telecom Fort) took a surprise victory on the Queen stage of the Tour of Turkey, holding off the charging GC battle to win atop the 21km climb to Feslikan as Sebastian Berwick (Caja Rural-Seguros RGA) climbed into the race lead.
The Italian was part of a large breakaway early in the day that started the final climb with a hefty lead, and whilst every other rider fell away and was caught by the chasing peloton, Bagatin took advantage of the head start to grab victory away from the GC riders.
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Starting the stage 13 seconds down, Berwick took second on the stage, attacking in the final kilometres to seize the lead from leader Iván Sosa (Equipo Kern Pharma), who finished just outside of the bonus seconds to lose the turquoise jersey.
As soon as they hit the 21.4km ascent, the lead group quickly started splintering apart, and with 18km to go, Bagatin went solo, leaving Şamli alone in the chase, with the peloton some three and a half minutes down.
With 2.6km to go, Sebastian Berwick went on the attack on his own, putting Sosa under pressure. Berwick got a small gap for a while, and whilst he couldn’t fully crack Sosa, he finished with a 12-second gap – enough to take the…
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