Mareckzo rules the day, Gonçalves owns the week at 52nd Presidential Tour of Turkey

While Portugal’s José Gonçalves (Caja Rural-Seguros RGA) may have been a surprise winner at this year’s Presidential Tour of Turkey on Sunday, Wilier-Southeast (formerly Southeast-Venezuela) sprinter Jakub Mareczko (ITA) was easily a pre-race favourite should the eighth – and final – stage come down to a bunch sprint, which it did.

The Polish-born Italian, who has yet to celebrate his 22nd birthday from the day before (April 30), was able to survive the first 40km, which included a category 1 climb sharply rising nearly 700 metres in elevation.

“It is a great satisfaction to win a second stage in the Tour of Turkey,” said Mareczko. “Especially as it wasn’t a flat stage.

“The big challenge for me today, setting out this morning, was to resist in the climb,” he explained further. “My team-mates helped me not to get dropped, and I managed to be there at the finish for the sprint.

“The first climbs were crucial. The breakaway went, which was good for us, and then on the longest climb, at the beginning, we decided to ride at the front as a team so I could stay in the first positions and not get dropped.

“That’s what we did in all the climbs, including the last one, close to the finish.”

For nearly 150 of the 201.7km race, a four-man breakaway including Alessandro Malaguti (Unieuro-Wilier), Jan Hirt (CCC Sprandi Polkowice), Muhammet Atalay (Torku Sekerspor) and Nicolas Baldo (Team Roth), who eventually fell off to rejoin the peloton with 42km to go, desperately attempted to ride away before being caught after the final category 3 climb with 10km remaining.

Southeast was able to benefit from the efforts of Lampre-Merida, Lotto Soudal and Parkhotel-Valkenburg to close the nearly six-minute gap (5:50) with 40km to the finish. Mareczko used his newly formed sprint train, led by Liam Bertazzo and lead out man Manuel Belletti, who claimed two podiums this week, to capture his second stage win of the race by outsprinting fellow two-time stage winner and compatriot Sacha Modolo (Lampre-Merida), Francisco Chamorro (Funvic Soul Cycles-Carrefour) and Kris Boeckmans (Lotto Soudal).

“We were in the front from the last kilometre and I do my sprint from 500- to 200m and it was good,” Bertazzo told Eurosport. “Four riders riding out front for 200km is too long, so catching them was not a problem.

“We are happy with today’s result and are excited about racing the Giro d’Italia next week.”

Like his Italian team-mate, Mareczko’s confidence is also boosted for the Giro.

“What I did today gives me good hope for my future, because I’m a good sprinter but I have to improve my climbing so that I can be there for the sprint,” he said. “In the closing section I followed my team-mates [Eugert] Zhupa, Bertazzo and Belletti, who led me out into the final 300m.

‘Then I took Modolo’s wheel and I managed to get past him, that’s how I won it,” concluded Mareczko. “This has been excellent preparation for the Dutch stages of the Giro d’Italia, and we’ll see if I can get a good placing in one of the first few stages.”

Slipping into the leaders jersey was a surprise at first for Gonçalves after taking over the lead from team-mate and stage 2 winner Pello Bilbao (ESP), who struggled on the queen stage finish to Elmali on stage 6 before abandoning the race a day later.

The 27-year-old, whose biggest career win previously came last year in his native Volta a Portugal, was not even the team’s second GC contender, with David Arroyo (ESP), who finished second overall 18 seconds back, being the next in line.

But with Gonçalves battling for the points jersey all week, before ultimately conceding to Belletti, he found himself atop the overall standing with just two stages to go.

“I didn’t come here with the objective of winning, but I knew I’d be OK,” and n Gonçalves told media in the post-race press conference. “Day by day the situation evolved.

“My success came as a surprise to me because of the hard, windy second and third stages. Without those two stages, I don’t know how it would have been, because in the mountains we have good riders.”