After two days for the sprinters, Tour of Turkey gave climbers a chance in the third stage, Kemen-Elmali (163 km), the top uphill finish of this year’s edition. While still recovering from the cystitis that limited him over the last two weeks, Colombia-Coldeportes’ Alex Cano took his first top-10 placement of the year, finishing 9th, 1.46 behind winner Davide Rebellin(CCC-Sprandi). The Italian attacked from the top group along with Kristian Durasek (Lampre-Merida) with 7 km to go, eventually dropping the Croatian in the last few metres.

Behind them, the leaders’ group splintered: Cano kept his steady pace on the tough way up, climbing to the 9th place overall in the process, behind leader Rebellin. Carlos Julian Quintero was 25th on the day, 4.37 adrift.

Ahead of the final climb, Colombia-Coldeportes Juan Pablo Valencia had been in the spotlight, working his way into the day’s breakaway at km 25, along with four more riders.  The 26-year-old Colombian, together with Bandiera (Androni-Sidermec), Goncalves (Caja Rural), Spokes (Drapac), and Jim (MTN-Qhubeka), held the race lead until 32 km to go, passing first atop the first two categorized climbs of the day, and taking the best climber’s red jersey in the process.

Sports Director Oscar Pellicioli sounded quite satisfied with his team effort afterwards: “It was a good team performance: Valencia did his job, moving into the breakaway and taking the jersey, Edwin Avila and Daniel Martinez were key for Alex Cano, bringing him back on the top group when the peloton split after the second ascent of the day. Alex’s performance on the final climb was quite encouraging: he finished 9th after being forced off the bike for ten days, that bodes well for the future. He should be better already in the second mountain stage.”

Tomorrow, Wednesday, the fourth stage will take place from Fethiye to Marmaris: a Category 1 mountain early on and another climb in the finale will test the sprinters looking to compete for the stage win.