An utterly overwhelmed Van den Broek leaves everyone behind in Tour of Turkey: "Felt the team's confidence"

An utterly overwhelmed Van den Broek leaves everyone behind in Tour of Turkey: “Felt the team’s confidence”

Frank van den Broek surprised everyone on Friday afternoon by winning the tough mountain stage in the Tour of Turkey. He defeated Paul Double and Merhawi Kudus in a three-man sprint, thus also taking the leader’s jersey. Afterward, Van den Broek expressed his thoughts in a delightful flash interview. “Tomorrow is a great opportunity and I will help again in the lead-out.”

dsm-Firmenich PostNL has already had a very successful week in the Tour of Turkey. After all, three stages had already been won by the Dutch team. Fabio Jakobsen and Tobias Lund Andresen also wore the leader’s jersey. Now, the totally surprised Van den Broek joins them. “Honestly, I did not expect this at all. I am overwhelmed. The team had a lot of confidence in me, but this is very special. It’s wonderful.”

Van den Broek didn’t know his breakaway companions: “But saw that Double was strong”

“The team worked well together, especially Julius van den Berg. That gave confidence. I knew I could win after we had passed the steepest part and it flattened out at the end. I was still there and knew I had a good sprint. It was a long finish straight.” Van den Broek had to admit that he didn’t know Kudus and Double well and couldn’t accurately judge his chances further on the final climb.

“I knew Double was very strong. I wanted to survive and go for the sprint.” Van den Broek switched gears right after the race. “Tomorrow and the day after are more opportunities for us to win stages. We will go for Fabio and the sprint train. Hopefully, it will be easy for me to keep the jersey. I want to finish in the peloton and hopefully can also help a bit in the lead-out.”