Sam Bennett (Bora-Hansgrohe) made it over the climb 30km from the finish and sprinted to an unexpected stage 5 win at the Tour of Turkey on Saturday, the Irishman's fourth stage win in five tries, with another opportunity on tap Sunday in Istanbul.
After his opening-day win on Tuesday, Bennett said he thought there would be two more opportunities for the sprinters over the following five days. The 26-year-old obviously underestimated his chances. The Bora-Hansgrohe sprinter went on to win stages 2 and 3, ceding Friday's stage 4 win and the overall lead to Diego Ulissi (UAE Team Emirates) on the final climb to Selcuk.
Bennett struck back on stage 5, however, clearing the day's major hurdle with 30km to go and setting himself up for a run at win number four in Turkey and 10 on the season so far.
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"Yesterday was so hard on every climb that I didn't think I'd get over any of the climbs today," Bennett said. "Yesterday I didn't have to go the podium and do everything, so I had time for 10 hours sleep and I recovered as much as a I could. I had really bad legs yesterday. Today, they weren't super but they weren't as bad as yesterday."
A group of seven riders went away early in Saturday's 180km fifth stage, including Bennett's teammate Shane Archbold, Turkey's Onur Balkan and Muhammed Atalay, Wilier-Trestina's Alex Turrin, WB Veranclassic-AquaProtect's Jimmy Duquesnoy and Lukas Spengler, and Androni Giocattoli-Sidermec's Matteo Spreafico. With Trek-Segafredo and UAE Team Emirates vigilant on the front of the peloton, the escapees never gained more than two minutes, and the group came apart on the first climb of the day.
Bennett lost teammates Leopold König and Michael Schwarzmann to a crash, and so had limited numbers for the finale. Nevertheless, his first focus had to be making it to the finish in the main bunch with the hardest climb of the day still to come.
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