"21 Kilometres At 8.4% To 1,900 Metres" — Tour Of Turkey 2026 Stage 6 Preview, The Antalya To Feslıkan Queen Stage Where The GC Will Be Settled And Where Anybody Hoping To Beat Sosa Has To Find Twelve Seconds Before The Sun Sets
Antalya. Saturday's Stage 6 of the 2026 Tour of Turkey is the queen stage and, on a race that has alternated between coastal sprints and selective summits, the day on which the overall will almost certainly be locked. The route is 127.9km out of central Antalya into the Beydağları, with 2,372m of climbing crammed into the back half and a single, brutal final ascent that breaks even the strongest field of the spring.
The headline number is the climb to Feslıkan: 21 kilometres averaging 8.4% with ramps into the high teens, summiting at 1,900m of altitude where the air thins and the temperature drops eight or nine degrees from the coastal heat at the foot. There is no flat between the base and the line. There is no descent on which to recover. It is, by some margin, the hardest summit finish on the international racing calendar in April.
Iván Ramiro Sosa (Equipo Kern Pharma) carries the leader's turquoise jersey into Saturday after a steady five days of racing and the queen-stage win from earlier in the week. His GC margin — 12 seconds over Sergio Samitier (Cofidis), with Diego Pescador and Lorenzo Fortunato bunched at +28" and +34" respectively — is enough to absorb a small attack but not enough to cover an outright drop on a climb of Feslıkan's character.
Samitier is the obvious threat. The Cofidis climber has been waiting all week for a finish like this and has the team to launch from distance: Anthony Pérez and Bryan Coquard have been earning their salaries in the early kilometres of every stage and Cofidis are expected to put two riders into the day's break to act as relay drops on the lower slopes. Pescador and Fortunato will mark from the GC group. Eddie Dunbar, sixth on GC at +51", remains an outside podium hope if the racing turns truly explosive.
The wildcard is the breakaway. With 32km of false flat into Kemer before the climb proper begins, the morning move will need to be enormous to survive — between 10 and 14 riders is the predicted size. Names to watch from the second rank of GC: Marc Soler (out of overall contention but riding strong), Picnic PostNL's Frank van den Broek, and Aurélien Paret-Peintre, who has flagged a stage-hunting interest after Liège-Bastogne-Liège.
Weather is expected to be the friend of the climbers. The forecast at the line shows 11°C, light north-easterly wind dropping to nothing inside the final 4km, and clear skies. The valley start in Antalya should sit at 24°C, meaning a 13-degree thermal swing across the climb. Riders who have not packed an extra layer for the descent — there is none, the line is the line — will find the soigneur at the bus park reaching for hot tea.
Tactically the day fractures into three windows. The first 32km of false flat will dictate the size and quality of the morning break. The middle of the climb — kilometres 6 to 14 of the ascent, where the gradient sits between 7.5% and 9% — is the long-bow attack zone for any GC rider trying to ride away from Sosa. And the final 3km, with the gradient steady and the air thin, will reward whoever has metered their effort best. Sosa's Kern Pharma have been quiet about their tactical plan, but the expectation is that José Félix Parra will set tempo from the bottom of the climb to thin the contenders before Sosa rides his own race up the steepest section.
The flag drop is at 11:35 local time with an expected finish around 15:30. Sunday's closing stage is a flat run-in to Istanbul, designed for sprinters and a final crit-style victory lap, meaning whoever climbs off the bike at Feslıkan in turquoise will, in all likelihood, lift the trophy on Sunday afternoon.