"He encouraged me to go for my chance" - Tobias Lund Andresen thankful for Fabio Jakobsen's support as he sprints into overall lead at Tour of Turkey

After sprinting to the stage win in a frantic and chaotic finale of stage 4 at the 2024 Tour of Turkey, Team DSM-Firmenich PostNL's Tobias Lund Andresen is also the new overall leader of the race.

"This victory is good for my self-confidence. I already have that from myself, but guys like Fabio Jakobsen really help with that," reflects the 21-year-old Dane in his post-stage interview, thankful for his team leader's support. "Even though he was dropped early today, he encouraged me to go for my chance. He didn't have the legs, but he motivated me enormously."

As mentioned, with victory Lund Andresen also moves into the overall lead of the Tour of Turkey, albeit by just 4 seconds from Giovanni Lonardi and Henri Uhlig in the general classification. "It's wonderful that I now have the leader's jersey. I want to continue to focus on these types of stages in the future," he continues. "I can sprint well, but I'm somewhere in the middle. I can't handle the steep mountains, but I can handle the smaller hills. That's what I'm going to focus on."

“The people who might be watching this round don't realize how much climbing there is here,” he adds. "The flat days here are not really flat, there is a lot of climbing involved. The roads are bad for large parts of the day, it sometimes feels like we are driving on cobblestones. It was difficult to keep grip, but it suits me."