Örken calls shot with Stage 4 win in Qinghai Lake

Torku’s about-face continues as team sprinter Ahmet Örken (Torku Şekerspor) called his shot prior to the Stage 4 start at the Tour of Qinghai Lake in Guide, China on Wednesday. Two days after taking a podium on Stage 2 and moving into points classification contention, the 24-year-old Turkish Olympian told Eurosport just after signing on to the 159-kilometre fourth stage “this is my day”— and it was.

Örken survived two brutal categorised climbs — including a Cat. 1 and a Cat. 2 — at elevations reaching near 4,000 metres to take a select sprint finish in Qinghai Lake atop the Tibetan Plateau and slip into the green points jersey in the process. Örken out-muscled Stage 3 third place finisher Davide Mucelli (Meridiana Kamen) of Italy at the line, with fellow Italian Antonio Santoro (Monkey Town Continental Team) trailing eight seconds behind in third.

“lt was a hard climb — painful,” admitted Örken after the race. “I believed in my legs and that I could win the race after the first climb. This is an amazing result for me and the team and I hope to stay and defend it.”

Torku sports director Branko Filip was equally pleased with the outcome, despite several setbacks during the race.

“We were actually focusing more on tomorrow’s stage,” Filip admitted to Eurosport. “Ahmet Örken is more like a Peter Sagan, in that he can climb and he can sprint. I told him if he can come over the top to try to do something.

“We had quite a few technical problems today,” he continued. “Ahmet’s handlebars went down in the middle of the race after the second KOM and we had to try and repair them during the race and Nazim Bakirci also had bike problems we had to repair on the road.

“But in the end, the day was perfect as we planned.”

The second-place finish for Mucelli moves him into the yellow jersey 11 seconds ahead of the previous race leader who beat him on Tuesday — Stanislau Bazhkou (Minsk Cycling) of Belarus. Venezuelan Yonathan Monsalve (Qinghai Tianyoude Cycling Team), who finished between Bazhkou and Mucelli on Stage 3 slips to third on GC at 12 seconds back.

While the yellow and green jerseys are playing hot potato, the polka-dot KOM and blue ‘Best Asian Rider’ jerseys remained on the backs of Ilia Koshevoy (Wilier Triestina-Selle Italia) and Yevgeniy Gidich (Vino-Astana Motors) respectively.

However, Koshevoy had a serious challenger in 2015 race winner Radoslav Rogina (Adria Mobil) of Croatia. Rogina led a three-man break and took valuable KOM points with second behind Colombian Oscar Pachón (RTS-Monton Racing) on the first climb before soloing to first on the second summit 41km away. A surging leading group followed led by Koshevoy, who now holds a two-point lead over Rogina in the mountains classification, but drops to seventh on GC from 13 seconds back to 1:14.

Thursday’s 185km Stage 5 from Qinghai Lake to Gangcha is expected to be another brutal day in the saddle with vicious crosswinds expected to split the field into echelons and could allow a rider to take time on the general classification before the summit finish on Friday plays a potentially deciding factor on the 13-stage UCI Asia Tour road race.

One team looking to challenge in the crosswinds is Dutch-registered UCI Continental team Monkey Town — formerly known as Parkhotel-Valkenburg. Team director Paul Tabak not only hand-selected Santoro, but also a trio of tall Dutchman Joris Blokker, Stephan Bakker and Rick van Breda in order to protect the diminutive 27-year-old Italian in the expected echelons.

“We have to be aware of the wind situations here in Qinghai Lake,” Tabak told Eurosport. “We have invested a lot in Antonio to let him ride a lot in Europe a lot — in Belgium, the Netherlands — to get him used to riding in the wind and racing in echelons.

“You see yesterday he was already sharp, he was in the first group and today again,” he explained. “It’s going to be war tomorrow and we have to protect Antonio as much as we can and put him in the first group.”

Blokker agreed.

“The biggest task we have to do is put Antonio in the first group for sure,” said the 23-year-old. “He is a small guy at 52 kilos and we have to push him and have to give full gas, so we will see tomorrow.”

1. Ahmet Örken, TUR, Torku Şekerspor, 4:14:42

2. Davide Mucelli, ITA, Meridiana Kamen Team, s.t.

3. Antonio Santoro, ITA, Monkey Town Continental Team, +0:08

1. Davide Mucelli, ITA, Meridiana Kamen Team, 13:20:20

2. Stanislau Bazhkou, BLR, Minsk Cycling Team, +0:11

3. Yonathan Monsalve, VEN, Qinghai Tianyoude Cycling Team, +0:12

Race leader (yellow jersey): Davide Mucelli, ITA, Meridiana Kamen Team

Points leader (green jersey): Ahmet Örken, TUR, Torku Şekerspor

Mountains leader (polka dot jersey): Ilia Koshevoy, BLR, Wilier Triestina-Selle Italia

Best Asian rider (blue jersey): Yevgeniy Gidich, KAZ, Vino-Astana Motors

Teams classification: Kuwait-Cartucho.es, 40:08:00

For full results click here.