The peloton of the Presidential Tour of Turkey took some time to admire the fabulous vue on the bay of Marmaris but they quickly went for serious racing. After 15 kilometers, an escapee of eight riders took shape, comprising: David Cañada (Saunier Duval), Benoît Joachim (Astana), Rouslan Ivanov (Serramenti PVC-Diquigiovanni), Aïtor Perez (Extremadura), Vytautas Kaupas (Mitsubishi-Jartazi), Christoph Meschenmoser (Team Ista), Kuca Zanasca (Centri della Calzatura-Partizan) and Filippo Savini (CSF-Navigare).

It was the right one. The Karpin-Galicia team of race leader David Garcia Dapena took care of the chase. The breakaway got a maximum lead of 7 minutes. With 53km to go, the gap went down to 5.42. At this stage, Benfica started giving a hand to Karpin-Galicia and the advantage of the leaders kept going down: 3.49 with 25km to go, 3.22 with 15km to go.

The hot spot sprint in Fethiye with 13.2km to go was won by Kaupas in front of Perez and Zanasca. The bunch was located at 3.07. Ivanov attacked with 12km to go. Savini, Perez and Cañada followed him. Joachim couldn’t hold the pace in the climb. By himself, Savini went across to Ivanov and took the lead of the race on his own. He pursued his effort until he got a significant advantage for himself.

At the top of the last climb with 4km to go, he was 29 seconds ahead of Zanasca who had overtaken Savini, Perez, Cañada and Joachim one after one. Savini increased his lead to 38 seconds in the downhill and won the stage by 45 seconds.

Garcia Dapena finished in the bunch 2.13 behind Savini and kept the yellow jersey.