Danny van Poppel took initial victory on stage 3 of the 2024 Tour of Turkey, prevailing in a bunch sprint finale ahead of Giovanni Lonardi and Enrico Zanoncello. After review from race jury however, the BORA - hansgrohe man was adjudged to have deviated from his sprinting line, with Lonardi being bumped up to stage winner.
After a big fight for the breakaway over the first hour of racing, four riders eventually went clear to form the day's lead group. Despite their lead looking considerable at one point, with just under 15km to go, the race was all back together at the front.
Due to the pace of the peloton on the climbs however, many riders were struggling at the back, including many of the sprinters, meaning the expected sprint finale was by no means a certainty, at least not with some of the bigger names.
Astana Qazaqstan Team, who won stage 2 through Max Kanter, were looking to take control of the peloton once again, but into the final kilometre, it was BORA - hansgrohe who were best positioned. Danny van Poppel opened up and powered to victory but there was some controversy in the finale as Giovanni Lonardi visibly protested.
The race jury listened to those protests too, as van Poppel was relegated for deviating from his sprinting line and Lonardi awarded the stage win. See the video of the finale down below and judge for yourself!
Results powered by FirstCycling.com
Place comments
0 Comments
You are currently seeing only the comments you are notified about, if you want to see all comments from this post, click the button below.
Show all comments