Fantastic five for Team dsm-firmenich PostNL at Tour of Türkiye; sprint win with Tobias Lund Andresen

Team dsm-firmenich PostNL’s incredible run of form at the Tour of Türkiye continued this afternoon, as they stormed to their fifth win of the race through a sublime sprint victory with Tobias Lund Andresen.
Riding on cloud nine after Frank van den Broek retained the race lead with an exceptional mountain-top win on Friday, all attention turned to another sprint opportunity on Saturday afternoon; aiming to set up fast finisher Fabio Jakobsen for the finale. Honouring the race leadership and with an eye on their sprint goals, the team took control and ensured a small break went clear. Riding strongly throughout the afternoon, Julius van den Berg and Johan Dorussen slowly reeled in those ahead while the rest of the team kept race leader Van den Broek and their sprint group safe. Moving up as a unit towards the finish, Team dsm-firmenich PostNL stayed calm in the hectic run-in, ensuring Jakobsen was in a good position through a crucial hairpin where there was a crash. Bram Welten then moved Lund Andresen and Jakobsen up expertly in the closing kilometre, dropping them off near the front. In sight of the line, Lund Andresen saw a gap and opened up his sprint lead-out but behind the door was closed on Jakobsen so he was unable to follow his teammate. Nonetheless, Lund Andresen’s incredible kick and jump, and some fantastic sustained power saw him hold on to the line to take a superb third win this week and the team’s fifth of the race; concluding another brilliant day for Team dsm-firmenich PostNL.
Speaking at the finish Lund Andresen said: “Fabio was behind my wheel and I was in the wheel of Bram, everything was going perfectly and according to plan. Fabio told me he got a bit squeezed and that I had to go for it. I hoped that Fabio was in my slipstream and could come around me in the end, but when you get so close to the finish then you have to secure the win and finish off the good teamwork from the guys. This is really crazy to have five wins in seven stages and be leading the GC, everything is going right for us and we have a lot of momentum, it feels like a dream at the moment. GC is also a priority for us as well as the sprints. This morning everyone was trying to jump in the break to go in the break so they could get some bonus seconds, so we were all jumping to control that, even Fabio controlled a few attacks. A GC win here for us with Frank would also be massive. We’ll definitely give it our best tomorrow to go for it again.”
Team dsm-firmenich PostNL coach Roy Curvers added: “The first and main goal of the day was to defend the GC lead with Frank. With a challenging start it was quite difficult but with some good teamwork we managed to allow a small break clear, that we could then control with some other teams. Julius and Johan did a great job in that. From that we could then aim for the second goal of the day which was to go for a sprint with Fabio. I think the guys rode a really good final together. They waited for each other when they got squeezed in the tight corners. In the end when Tobias started his lead-out Fabio couldn’t follow, but Tobias could extend that lead-out to the line and grab the fifth victory for the team here and his third personally. It’s starting to feel a bit unreal what the guys are doing. We will go for it one more time tomorrow to defend the GC and go for the sprint.”