Aniołkowski Times It Perfectly In Fethiye For First Win In Three Years As Pickrell And Persico Round Out Stage 4 Podium
Stanisław Aniołkowski has ended a 36-month winless run in the most emphatic possible fashion, perfectly timing his sprint to take Stage 4 of the 2026 Presidential Cycling Tour of Türkiye on the seafront finish in Fethiye. The 28-year-old Pole, riding for Cofidis in his second season at the French ProTeam, claimed his first victory since a stage of the Tour of Hellas in May 2023.
The 130.4-kilometre stage from Marmaris along the D400 coastal corniche through Köyceğiz and Göcek was always projected to come down to a bunch sprint, and the predicted south-westerly tailwind through the long inland stretch east of Köyceğiz never delivered the echelon havoc some sports directors had warned of. The bunch came together inside the final ten kilometres after a three-rider breakaway was reeled in, leaving 18 sprint trains to fight for position on the technical run-in along the Fethiye marina.
The closing kilometre was, as Cyclingnews reported, "messy" — a mixture of late surges, broken lead-outs and several near-touches at 60 kilometres an hour. Fernando Gaviria (Movistar) launched his sprint from the front inside the flamme rouge and looked, for a moment, to have the legs to convert. Behind him, Modern Adventure Pro Cycling's Riley Pickrell tracked the move beautifully and came round the Colombian — only for Aniołkowski to find a tunnel of air to Pickrell's right and time his own jump to perfection.
The Pole came past Pickrell in the final 30 metres and crossed the line with half a bike length to spare, throwing both arms wide before slumping over his bars. Pickrell, the 23-year-old Canadian, held second from MBH Bank CSB Telecom Fort's Davide Persico in third — Persico's third top-five of the race so far. Gaviria faded to a disappointing seventh.
The win is a defining moment of Aniołkowski's career. Once a stage winner at the 2022 CRO Race and a strong Pro Series sprinter at Bingoal, the Pole's 2024 season at Human Powered Health and his entire 2025 campaign at Cofidis had passed without a victory, and a series of close calls at the Volta ao Algarve and Settimana Coppi e Bartali earlier this spring had begun to look like a confidence problem rather than a tactical one. "I have been trying for so long," he told TVP Sport at the line, his voice cracking. "Every single sprint, second, third, fourth — and today I finally found the right hole at the right moment."
Cofidis, who haven't had a win at WorldTour or HC level in 2026, will take the result as the springboard their classics-quiet spring campaign desperately needed. Sports director Christophe Vandegoor told L'Équipe at the line that Aniołkowski had been "the strongest sprinter at the race for three days now — what was missing was the final 50 metres of conviction. He has it back."
The general classification is unchanged at the top, with Iván Sosa (Equipo Kern Pharma) keeping turquoise after his Stage 3 Kıran summit win, leading Sergio Samitier by 12 seconds and Jonas Jégat by 22. Türkiye Meteoroloji's forecast tailwind on the Friday Pamukkale Stage 5 — the 174.2-kilometre final GC pivot of the race — is now the only realistic shake-up window left for the Colombian's cushion before Saturday's traditional Istanbul finish on the Bosphorus.
For Aniołkowski, attention now turns to Friday's lumpy run to Pamukkale and Saturday's flat sprint into the heart of Istanbul, where he will start the closing stage as the bookmakers' new outright favourite to add a second win to the rest of his cabinet. "I needed this one," the Pole said. "The next one is for the team."