"I didn't expect this at all. I'm overwhelmed" - Neo-pro Frank van den Broek on beating the rest atop Tour of Turkey's toughest day

If there is one thing Team DSM-Firmenich PostNL has always been good at, it's developing young riders. Today another one broke through the scene; Frank Van den Broek took the opportunity at the Tour of Turkey and has won the queen stage.

"To be honest, I didn't expect this at all. I'm overwhelmed. The team had a lot of confidence in me, but this is very special. It is awesome," van den Broeck said in a post-race interview. "The team worked well, especially Julius van den Berg. That gave confidence. I knew I could win when we had the steepest part and it flattened out at the end. I was still there at the time and knew I had a good sprint. It was a long finish line."

The Dutchman followed the wheel of Briton Paul Double up the final climb, after Merhawi Kudus launched a very dangerous attack. The three were above the rest today, and the stage was decided in a sprint. As Double burnt himself up ahead of the spring, Van den Broek picked it up with an explosive acceleration and managed to hold off Kudus to the line. "I knew Double was very good. I wanted to survive and go for the sprint," he said. This win also earns him the race lead, which he is now the main favourite to conquer.

However he still has two days of racing ahead, where gaps can emerge and the threat will be present. "Tomorrow and the day after tomorrow there will be opportunities for us to win stages again. We then go for Fabio [Jakobsen] and the sprint train. Hopefully it will be easy for me to keep the jersey. I want to finish in the peloton and hopefully I can also help a little in the lead-out," he concluded.