The Turk finished the race 41 seconds ahead of Eritrea’s Natnael Berhane (Europcar) and 44 seconds clear of Yoann Bagot (Cofidis).
By Capital Eritrea,
Natnael Berhane of Eritrea finished overall 2nd place in the General Classification (GC) of the Tour of Turkey behind Turkish rider Sayar Mustafa of Konya Torku Seker.
The General Classification tracks overall times for bicycle riders in multi-stage bicycle races. Each stage will have a stage winner, but the overall winner in the GC is the rider who has the fastest time when all the stage results are added together.
During the 8th and final stage of the competition Eurosport cycling commentators described Natnael Berhane as the most outstanding character and surprise of the entire Tour of Turkey. German Marcel Kittel of Argos-Shimano won the the final stage of the competition on a sunny day in Istanbul.
Natnael born in Eritrea is the first cyclist from sub-Saharan Africa to win a major Hors Categorie (HC) event on the UCI calendar in history.
What an unforgettable 3rd stage race and what a landmark achievement for African cycling when Natnael won the 3rd stage mountain race of the Presidential Tour of Turkey. Natnael made history for Eritrea and African cycling sport.
In a dramatic finish the Eritrean moved into a lead group of four riders with about 3km left, and stayed seated as he powered up the steep road. With a few hundred meters remaining, he attacked and sprinted to the finish line of the 3rd stage race. Nobody followed him and his victory was uncontested on that day.
The Tour of Turkey was attended by 200 professional athletes from 25 competing teams cycling a distance of 1204 km from Alanya to Istanbul.
| Result | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Mustafa Sayar (Tur) Torku Sekerspor | 29:13:13 | |
| 2 | Natnael Berhane (Eri) Team Europcar | 0:00:41 | |
| 3 | Yoann Bagot (Fra) Cofidis, Solutions Credits | 0:00:44 | |
| 4 | Maxime Mederel (Fra) Sojasun | 0:00:57 | |
| 5 | Nicolas Edet (Fra) Cofidis, Solutions Credits | 0:01:00 | |
| 6 | Cameron Meyer (Aus) Orica-GreenEdge | 0:01:02 | |
| 7 | Darwin Atapuma Hurtado (Col) Colombia | 0:01:08 | |
| 8 | Florian Guillou (Fra) Bretagne-Seche Environnement | 0:01:09 | |
| 9 | Danail Andonov Petrov (Bul) Caja Rural | 0:01:13 | |
| 10 | Rory Sutherland (Aus) Team Saxo-Tinkoff | 0:01:15 |
