Tour of Turkey 2021 - Jasper Philipsen claims narrow Stage 6 win as Mark Cavendish finishes fourth
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Updated 16/04/2021 at 13:40 GMT
Philipsen claimed victory by a matter of centimetres at Stage 6 of the Tour of Turkey in Marmais with an impressive sprint ahead of Andre Greipel. Having finished second three times earlier in the race, Philipsen finished ahead of the pack for the first time with Kristoffer Halvorsen taking third place.
‘Just edged!’ - Philipsen claims Stage 6 via photo finish
Jasper Philipsen (Alpecin-Fenix) narrowly claimed victory on Stage 6 of the Tour of Turkey with an impressive sprint ahead of Andre Greipel (Israel Start-Up Nation), with Kristoffer Halvorsen (Uno-X) in third.
The 129.1km Fethiye–Marmais leg of the race saw Mark Cavendish (Deceuninck-QuickStep) finish fourth after avoiding a collision with Stanislaw Aniolkowski (Bingoal WB) in the closing moments.
Greipel was out in front going into the final kilometre with Philipsen and Aniolkowski sat closely behind on his wheel.
However, Philipsen’s late move saw him out-pace the German to the finish line by a matter of centimetres as Halvorsen was also able to find his way through.
Cavendish, who claimed a hat-trick of wins earlier this week, was fortunate to cross the line at all as he just avoided a dangerous coming together with Aniolkowski.
Philipsen had picked up three second-place finishes earlier in the race and was pleased to pick up his first win in this year’s event.
"I was really disappointed with the three second places so I knew the victory was really close,” the Belgian said afterwards. “Everything had to fall in a good place with no mistakes in the sprint, so I'm really happy."
The 23-year-old also admitted he had bike trouble going into the final sprint but successfully managed to pull through.
“In the last five kilometres, my chain fell off my rear derailleur, so it wasn't on the wheel, so I had to push a lot more watts to keep the speed going," he said.
I was almost sure I was never going to win the sprint. I followed the good wheels and then I could sprint a little bit.
"I'm happy that Greipel opened up otherwise it would have been impossible.”
José Manuel Díaz (Delko) retains the general classification lead following his stage 5 victory.
The Spaniard holds a four-second lead over Jay Vine heading to Turgutreis for penultimate stage of the race on Saturday.
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