"Textbook Lead-Out, Textbook Finish" — Casper Van Uden Picks His Moment In Kemer For Picnic PostNL's First Win Of 2026, Tour Of Turkey Stage 5 Settles A Reduced Sprint After A Hard Day Over Çukurbağ And Tahtalı
Kemer. Casper van Uden has delivered the first Team Picnic PostNL win of 2026, surfing a clinical lead-out and timing his sprint to perfection on the seafront in Kemer to take Stage 5 of the Presidential Cycling Tour of Türkiye. The 23-year-old Dutchman finished comfortably ahead of Marcin Budziński (MBH Bank CSB Telecom Fort) in second, with Russian Nikita Tsvetkov (Astana Qazaqstan) third. Davide Ballerini (XDS Astana) launched early off the front of the bunch and faded inside the final 100 metres to fourth.
Friday's stage was supposed to be a serious GC test. The 180.7km route from Patara crossed the Lycian coast on the D400 with the second-cat Çukurbağ at km 92 (8.4km at 5.7%) before the first-cat Tahtalı (11.2km at 6.9%) summited just 24km from the line. In practice the front group of around 40 riders held together over the descent and the flat 6km coastal run-in, and the GC men were content to let a group of fast finishers contest the line.
"The team rode for me from kilometre zero," Van Uden said at the line. "We knew the climbs would split the bunch but if we could keep three or four men with me we would have the strongest train. Maikel Zijlaard, Niklas Märkl and Tobias Lund Andresen did the whole thing on their own, and on the line I had only to follow Tobias and come out at the right moment. It is the first win of the year for the team and a long time coming." It is Van Uden's third career WorldTour-level victory and his first since taking Giro di Toscana Stage 4 last September.
The GC remains tight at the top with race leader Iván Sosa (Equipo Kern Pharma) crossing the line in the front group on the same time as the winner and keeping his +12-second margin over Spanish climber Sergio Samitier (Equipo Kern Pharma). Ecuadorian climber Jefferson Cepeda (EF Education-EasyPost) tested the GC briefly on the upper slopes of the Tahtalı but was reabsorbed inside 5km of the summit. Jay Vine finished safely in the front group, sitting eighth on GC at +1'21" with the Giro reshuffle firmly on his radar from Tuesday.
Stage 4 winner Stanisław Aniołkowski (Cofidis) sat up on the lower slopes of the Tahtalı, deliberately conserving for tomorrow's Feslıkan summit finish and Saturday's flat closing day in Istanbul. Fernando Gaviria (Movistar) was distanced over Çukurbağ and finished outside the time limit conversation in a small group at +6'42". Tom Crabbe (Lotto), who took back-to-back stages in the opening week, was dropped from the bunch on the first climb of the day.
Saturday brings the second mountain pivot of the race. Stage 6 takes the bunch 158.4km from Antalya to a summit finish on the Feslıkan, a 14.6km climb averaging 6.4% with two pitches over 9% in the final 4km. It is the last stage on which Sosa can realistically be moved out of the leader's jersey before the closing flat day in Istanbul on Sunday. Cepeda, Samitier, Vine and Buitrago's brother Jeisson — riding for Burgos-Burpellet-BH — are the most credible challengers, with the books pricing Sosa 4/6 to defend.
For Picnic PostNL the win is a major reset. The squad came into 2026 carrying a winless April after their reorganisation around Van Uden, Märkl and Lund Andresen, with sports director Erik Dekker telling Dutch press in the Romandie paddock on Tuesday that the season "needed a result by Friday". They got it on Friday in Kemer. Van Uden now leads the points classification on equal-points tiebreak with Aniołkowski, with the closing 137km coastal day in Istanbul on Saturday set to decide it.
The 60th edition of the race continues Saturday at 11:35 EEST with flag drop in Antalya, and concludes Sunday with the closing 137.4km Istanbul circuit at 12:00 EEST. Race director Abdurrahman Açıkalın confirmed Friday evening that the 2027 calendar slot would be brought forward by one week to mid-April to avoid the head-to-head with Romandie that has limited the race's WorldTour pull this season.