While the admittedly fantastic autumn classics are drawing most of the attention of the cycling world, we've got time for one more (well, two actually) world tour stage race: The Tour of Turkey! This week I've sat down with some recordings of last year's race and I'll admit, I really enjoyed it. The Tour of Turkey is not a race that tries to be the Dauphinée on the Anatolian peninsula, or the Binq Bank Tour of the eastern Mediterranean: the Tour of Turkey is unabashedly itself, and that means wide open highways, gradual climbs, chaotic sprints and pro-contintal climbers taking the fight to a World Tour podium on the almost iconic climb at Selcuk. Let's go! Or, as they say in Turkey: 

Başla!

The Tour of Turkey is race with a long history, but with only a recent promotion to World Tour level. Last year, most World Tour teams avoided the race, although Diego Ulissi (UAE) and Sam Bennett (Bora Hansgrohe) did lap up most of what was on offer! Like any race, the Tour of Turkey awards four jerseys: The leader's jersey is a light and bright shade of blue, the KOM jersey is red and the sprint jersey is green. The white jersey isn't for the youngest rider, but is instead awarded to the leader of the "Beauties of Turkey" classication: essentially a classification of intermediate sprints located near touristic highlights along the route. A race of six stages, it's usually one or two stages that decide the GC, the rest offering a tense stand off between sprinters and break. Included in this category is our fist stage....

If you want to see a typical Tour of Turkey stage, look no further than this! The opening stage of the Tour starts and finishes in the same town, Konya. Konya is the farthest inland we'll get in this race, and the stage is all about and around the town. We start near Mevlana square for a neutral roll out through the city centre before a mostly flat loop to the north of the town. After looping back through town, the riders take on the hills south of Konya. The toughest is 9 kilometres long over the wide Turkish highways. It's average is around 4%, but there are several steep sections of over eight and nine percent. The steepest part is near the top, so expect a fierce fight among those in the break for the KOM jersey.  

From here, the terrain rolls on until 30km to go. A steep descent is followed by an extra lap through the city centre - including the Beauties sprint of the day at the Mavlana Museum- and finally a sprint. Most of this final is either false flat or downhill, so expect a fast run in. The roads are wide, but there are two sharp corners in the final kilometre, so sprinters will have to be very alert or risk ending their race on the floor. 

The field of sprinter's in this year is great, but two giants tower over the others, both from World Tour squads: Fernando Gaviria and Sam Bennett. 

Sam Bennett won four out of five sprints in last year's edition, and that was before his break out Giro! He didn't get to take the sprinter's jersey home, because he crashed without taking points on the final stage. His recent form has been two sided: he's won his first race returning in Köln, but hasn't finished most of his races afterwards.

Fernando Gaviria is undoubtedly one of the best sprinters of the current crop. His year started strong, but in the Tour de France the Colombian took the Mario Cippolini approach and went home at the first sight of mountains. Today his team announced they found a new sponsor and will probably be able to keep 'Nando on board after all, so he'll surely want to prove he's able to close his season as succesfull as he opened it. Quickstep have provided him with a serious train, and Sam Bennett wil surely have to bring a lot of ingenuity to crack this puzzle like he did with QS´s Giro train.

Edward Teuns or Nikias Arndt. Teuns was Bennett's main competition in 2017, and returns again. This time however he's riding for a different team, and Team Sunweb has got more sprinters on board, and Nikias Arndt might be the teams best bet here.

John Degenkolb rides for Teuns´ former team, Trek Segafredo. The German rider is finally showing hints of his old self again this year, with a win in the Tour de France and great placings in last month´s German World Tour sprint fests. His train isn´t the best, but it´s undistracted by other duties.

Simone Consonni is another sprinter of note, but he´s handicapped by being on the same team as the defending GC winner, Diego Ulissi. He´ll have to go at it alone, making use of other´s trains.

🌙🌙🌙🌙🌙 Fernando Gaviria, Sam Bennett

🌙🌙🌙🌙 John Degenkolb

🌙🌙🌙 Jay McCarthy, Nikias Arndt, Simone Consonni

🌙🌙  Garcia, Sanz, Porsev, Richeze, Hodeg, Van Poppel, Teuns

With everyone surely excited for this race,  a crash in the final bend will take out most of the favourites of the stage. It's up to the lead out men to finish for themselves, and it's Maximiliano Richeze who outsprints Jay McCarthy, Boy van Poppel and his less experienced teammate Alvaro Hodeg. It's not the Tour of San Juan, but it's close enough.