The 2021 Presidential Tour of Turkey was a road cyclingstage race that took place between 11 and 18 April 2021 in Turkey. It was the 56th edition of the Presidential Tour of Turkey. The race has previously been a part of the UCI World Tour up until 2019, but it was relegated in 2020. This edition was the race's first as a 2.Pro event on the UCI ProSeries and UCI Europe Tour calendars since its demotion, with the 2020 edition having been cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.[1][2]
Teams
Three UCI WorldTeams, fourteen UCI ProTeams and eight UCI Continental teams participated in the race.[3][4] Of the twenty-five teams, Deceuninck–Quick-Step, Gazprom–RusVelo, and Team SKS Sauerland NRW, with six riders each, were the only ones that did not field the maximum allowed of seven riders.[5] UCI ProTeam Vini Zabù was originally invited to participate, but they imposed a self-suspension on racing after one of their riders received a positive anti-doping test.[6] From the 171 riders that started the race, 139 finished.[7]
The 2021 edition includes eight stages, up from six in 2019, covering 1,338.9 kilometres (832.0 mi) over eight days.[3] The first stage had to be altered due to heavy snow along the original route, reducing the total distance to 1,244 kilometres (773 mi).[8][9]
On stage 2, Kristoffer Halvorsen, who was second in the points classification, wore the green jersey, because first-placed Arvid de Kleijn wore the turquoise jersey as the leader of the general classification. Arvid de Kleijn on stage 3 and Jasper Philipsen on stages 4 and 5 wore the green jersey on behalf of Mark Cavendish for the same reason.
Final classification standings
Legend
Denotes the winner of the general classification
Denotes the winner of the mountains classification
Denotes the winner of the points classification
Denotes the winner of the Turkish Beauties Sprints classification
^ abStage 1, originally covering 167.3 kilometres (104.0 mi) from Nevşehir to Ürgüp, was initially cancelled due to heavy snow storms.[8] However, hours later, race officials organized an alternate route for the stage in and around Konya, which then became the host of the first two stages. This new route was essentially a shorter version of the route for stage 2, except the race would turn east onto the D696 highway instead of heading south to take on a longer loop as they would for the second stage.[9]
