After displaying some strong lead-outs in the opening stages in Türkiye, Team Picnic PostNL remained determined and took their spoils on Thursday afternoon in a sprint finish win with Casper van Uden.
A hard day of racing saw a fast tempo throughout the afternoon, but Team Picnic PostNL were steadfast and rode excellently throughout the day, always ensuring they were represented at the front and in the moves. Timo de Jong was part of a promising ten rider group, but that was brought back on the last climb of the day. On that ascent the two-striped squad showed excellent fighting spirit for all six of the riders to make it over the top of the climb in the reduced peloton. From there, their full attention turned to setting up a fast finale with Casper van Uden; confident and steadfast in the belief that he had the speed to finish off the lead-out. In an almost picture perfect fashion, the team still had four riders together at just over one kilometre to go, peeling off one-by-one and bringing Van Uden deep into the final and in an ideal position. Not hesitating when another rider jumped early, Van Uden sprung into his wheel and used that slipstream as a slingshot, powering past him and able to celebrate a brilliant team victory come the line.
