CALEB EWAN HONOURS HIS COUNTRY’S HISTORY AT GALLIPOLI

In a Presidential Tour of Türkiye marked by an Australian domination in bunch sprints finishes, Caleb Ewan, the most famous of the fast men from the land down under, didn’t miss the opportunity to grab a second victory in Eceabat, which is part of the Gallipoli peninsula where many of his compatriots lost their lives in World War 1. Jasper Philipsen and Danny van Poppel rounded out the podium while Patrick Bevin settled for fourth, missing out on the time bonuses so Eduardo Sepulveda retained 11 seconds lead over him in the overall classification.

In a long but eventful stage 6, Ewan’s team-mate Thomas De Gendt rode away solo for a while before the peloton contested the first Sprint Prime at km 15. Won by green jersey holder Jasper Philipsen, Bevin, second on the line, took two seconds bonus to move closer to Sepulveda.

America’s Noah Granigan (Wildlife Generation) took over from Sepulveda in the KOM classification as he crested the cat. 2 climb of km 38.6 in first place ahead of Harm Van Houcke (Lotto-Soudal) and Nicolas Edet (Arkea-Samsic). 

A 5-rider breakaway finally took shape at km 57 with Ahmet Örken (Wildlife Generation), Lucas De Rossi (China Glory), Alessandro Santaromita (Bardiani-CSF-Faizanè), Mykhaylo Kononenko (Sakarya) and Burak Abay (Spor Toto). Santaromita became the virtual GC leader as the move got more than 4’ of an advantage.

ith 90km to go, they got reinforced by De Gendt and Michiel Stockman (Saris Rouvy) but the cooperation wasn’t very good in that group. 70km before the end, they got replaced by a different group of 5 escapees: Vojtech Repa (Kern Pharma), Onur Balkan and Batuhan Ozgur (Sakarya), Edgar Nieto (Spor Toto) and Julian Borresch (Saris Rouvy).

Ozgur won the Treasures of Türkiye Sprint on the 1915 Çannakale bridge to move into the white jersey. From that breakaway group that got up to 3’ lead, Repa and Borresch were last to surrender with 9km to go.

In the meantime, Team BikeExchange-Jayco had tried to split the bunch but it was a bunch sprint at the end on the lumpy roads leading to the 57th Regiment Memorial in Eceabat. Lotto-Soudal perfectly positioned Ewan who went to the front 300 metres before the line, looked back and realized no one would overtake him.