Rabbobank's Theo Bos won the opening stage of the 48th Presidental Tour Of Turkey this afternoon.
A 135km stage which started and finished in Alanya saw three men in Will Routley (SPI), Adrian Hegevary (UHC) and Adrian Kurek (UNA) break away before being joined by Albert Timmer (ARG), Maxim Belkov (KAT), Frederique Robert (LTB), Javier Ramirez (ACG) and Gabor Kasa (SLC).
They were eventually caught after 113kms and this led to a bunch sprint.
In the last kilometre, a rider lost his balance in the middle of the bunch, causing a massive pile-up which held a number of the favourites back. While world silver-medallist Matt Goss looked ideally set-up by his Greenedge team-mates, Bos had the final say and won in a time of 3.05.45 ahead of Matt Goss and Italian Daniele Colli was third ahead of Alessandro Petacchi.
Britain's Andrew Fenn was 52nd.
Matt Goss (GreenEdge, 2nd in the stage) said: “When I crossed the line, I had no idea who was coming on my left and whether I had won or not. It was pretty close between Theo Bos and me. I’m happy still. On such a fast circuit you really spend a lot of energy. It’s the first time I found myself led out by the whole Greenedge team. They made a terrific job and stayed cool all the way. I would have loved to finish the job in style but it’s still a very good result. “