Vadic gets off the mark in Catalca
Baptiste Vadic won stage 1 of the Tour of Istanbul on Thursday. The Team TotalEnergies rider came out on top in Catalca after 3h58’35 of racing.
It was the first victory of his professional career. It took time, but it finally came.
The Frenchman beat Alexandre Balmer (Solution Tech-NIPPO-Rali) and Artem Fofonov (XDS Astana Development) on the line. The three riders finished on the same time.
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TotalEnergies took control of the stage
The French team did not just win. It packed the front of the standings.
Pierre Thierry finished fourth, 4 seconds back. Florian Dauphin was sixth at 10 seconds, Mathis Le Berre ninth, Emilien Jeanniere 13th. Five TotalEnergies riders in the top 15.
In between, Giovanni Lonardi (Team Polti VisitMalta), Mattia Negrente and Marcin Budzinski filled out the top eight. The main bunch came home 10 seconds down.
A tune-up race that still matters
The Tour of Istanbul does not carry the weight of a Grand Tour. Still, it has a useful slot in the late-season calendar, sitting between the Vuelta and the World Championships in Montreal.
For a rider still waiting for his first win, the calendar hardly matters. Vadic takes the race lead and will head into the next stages with a very different status.
The rest of the field knows exactly who to watch now.
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