Tobias Andresen, who took his first professional victory in the 59th Presidential Cycling Tour of Turkey: I am discovering a beautiful country

Speaking at the press conference held after the race, Andresen said, “I am really happy to get my first professional win on behalf of the DSM-Firmenich-PostNL team. We also came here to complete our preparations for the Giro d’Italia and to train to get ahead. We had a sprint training camp in the Netherlands. Fabio (Jakobsen) and I worked a lot together. We really have video analysis to fly to the Giro but obviously we wanted to prove ourselves here. Fabio was very happy after his first win. He showed off his incredible speed. We wanted to get some wins here and that’s part of the process leading up to the Giro. “Our priority in the sprints is always Fabio and I am his last leading man,” he said.

Tobias Andresen continued his words as follows;

“I’m only 21, this is a big job for me, but on days like these I’m often told to stay ahead. So if Fabio doesn’t make it, I might try my luck. But if it is exceeded, the priority will remain with him. The wind did not affect us much today or just on the last descent, but I went directly so as not to take any risks. To be fair I made two bike changes in the last 20km. I had just returned to the peloton with 10km to go, so I didn’t realize how close we were to catching the breakout. It was a bit of a surprise that we caught them so late, but luckily Astana was there with a lot of helpers. “Sometimes you have to gamble on other teams closing the gap.”

Stating that he came to Turkey for the first time, the 21-year-old athlete said, “This is my first time in Turkey. It’s a really nice and warm country. I’m discovering a beautiful country, more beautiful than racing in Belgium or the Netherlands at the moment. He stays at the beach every day. “The roads were a little tough today, but it also made the race better,” he said.

Emphasizing that the Tour of Turkey is a challenging race, Andresen said, “The TOUR is actually a very nice race to do. After all the one-day races, you need a weeklong race like this to get back into your best shape. It’s nice to get back into that stage race mentality. It gives good shape because every day is hard. Being the fourth race leader in four days shows that this is a tough race. “It’s really nice that the same driver doesn’t wear the turquoise jersey and the same team doesn’t compete every day, this is a good thing for the race,” he concluded.