Europcar's Natnael Berhane won the third stage of the Tour Of Turkey.
It was hot and sunny as this third 152km stage from Antalya to the apple producing capital of Elmali, rolled out of the Konyaalti boulevard in Antalya.
Following yesterday's big crash 600ms from the finish line, there were a number of withdrawals including Mark Ranshaw who broke his collarbone in three places, Theo Bos, Jonas Van Genechten, Karol Domagalski and Danilo Napolitano but not race and points leader Andre Greipel.
On a day for the climbers with three big climbs, the opening King Of The Mountains climb came after 9.3kms and was won by Torku rider Nazim Bakirci who took the five points.
Then there was a Turkish Beauty sprint at 23kms which was won by Moreno of Caja Rural, before six riders in Duggan (TST), Koretzky (BSE), Marycz (CCC), Thurau (EUC), Finetto (VIN) and Grechyn (TRK). managed to escape a build up a two minute lead.
Bjorn Thurau beat Finetto over the line for the category one King Of The Mountains climb at Tahtalibeli after 35.5kms but he had to settle for third in the next climb after 76kms when Finetto won ahead of Grechyn.
The six escapers split and after 84kms Marycz, Thurau, Finetto and Grechyn are 3.30 ahead of the peloton whilst Koretzky and Duggan were at 2.20.
With Marycz dropped, Bjorn Thurau put in a big shift for Marco Finetto and Sergei Grechyn, who were 1.32 ahead with 20kms.
Thurau was finally caught with 7kms to go and the attacks started to happen with Omega Pharma Quick Step's Serge Pauwels going on a solo break.
There was five kilometres to go when Kevin Seeldrayers and Berhane started to reel in Pauwels. They caught him with three to go and the stage on the final climb.
Seeldrayers, Berhane, Pagani, Atapuma, Médérel and Sayar took over at the front and with 200ms to go African Road Race Champion Berhane went and won in 4.16.06 ahead of Seeldrayers (Astana), Sayar (Torku), Médérel (Sojasun) and Bagot (Cofidis).
Natnael Berhane now leads the race by ten seconds from Seeldrayers.