Presidential Cycling Tour of Turkiye 2025 Stage 7

May 3, 2025 It's a relatively short day from Selçuk to Çeşme at just 144KM. The route hugs the coast until Doğanbey where it turns North across the peninsula towards Yelki. There is just one lump on the way after the town of Gülbahçe which summits 37KM from the finish but at just 5% for 3KM, most of the fast men should manage it and be ready for a group kick at the end in Çeşme. Eight riders got in the break including Márton Dina of Euskatel-Euskadi, Valerio Conti of Solution Tech-Vini Fantini, Jelle Vermoote of Wagner Bazin-WB, David Lozano of Novo Nordisk, Adne Van Engelen of Terengganu, Willie Smit of China Glory-Mentech, Oliver Mattheis of BIKE AID, and Mustafa Tekin of Spor Toto. They had a good lead of 4 minutes 10 seconds with 77KM to go but the peloton had things under control, tapping along at a holding pace. Uno-X Mobility and Polti-VisitMalta were doing the work but other teams swarmed to the front as they arrived in Yelki on the coast with the threat of cross winds on their mind. The wind was not strong enough to split the bunch but the gap was coming down. As the break were gearing up for the Treasures of Turkiye Sprint with 46KM to go, the gap was at 2 minutes 25 seconds. Smit started to skip pulls in the group to save some energy for the sprint. Mattheis went long but Smit was on his wheel right away and rolled passed with 100M to the line. With taking the top points, Smit mathematically cannot be beaten in the Treasures of Turkiye Sprint classification as long as he finishes the final stages. XDS-Astana took control after some nervous moments in the wind and by the time the break started the one and only classified climb, their lead was down to 1 minute 40 seconds. None of the riders in the break were in contention for the mountains points so they decided to work together to stay out as long as possible. The peloton were organized and ready for a sprint though and had the Vermoot, the last rider left in the break, at 15 seconds with 10KM to go. Vermoot was brought back shortly after but the peloton looked more like all individual riders rather teams with next to no cohesion or control. Lotto, Uno-X Mobility, and Equipo Kern Pharma finally got themselves together and ready for a sprint with 4KM to go. Flanders-Baloise took the final corner at 1KM to go in the front but Lotto, Uno-X Mobility, and Picnic-PostNL were the teams that had numbers at 500M. Lotto had the lead on the inside of a gently sweeping left turn but Matteo Malucelli of XDS-Astana got the jump around the outside. As the road straightened, Alexander Kristoff of Uno-X Mobility came off the wheel of Malucelli with Davide Persico of Wagner-Bazin-WB behind him. Kristoff and Persico pulled level at 75M. It looked like Kristoff was going to take the win but Malucelli left the door open on the barriers and Elia Viviani of Lotto popped out just 40M from the line and pipped them all for the win. It's Viviani's first win for Lotto after they signed him late, with the season already underway.