Tour of Türkiye: Global Riders to Watch
There's lots of talent on show at the race's 60th edition
With more relaxed visa restrictions in Türkiye, the country’s national tour is always a melting pot of riders from all over the world. Over the years, it has been a particularly happy hunting ground for riders from Africa and Asia who wouldn’t usually get to compete in such a high-level event.
With its status as a UCI 2.PRO race, the Tour of Türkiye equally attracts professional teams in search of a bucket-load of UCI points. This year three WorldTour teams are to take part, including defending champions Picnic-PostNL, who bring with them last year’s winner Frank van den Broek. The Dutch team’s relegation rivals XDS-Astana are also here alongside Alpecin-Deceuninck. No fewer than 13 ProTeams are also in Türkiye for the week-long stage race.
It’s a golden opportunity for local Turkish riders and others from Asia and Africa to test themselves against some of the world’s best. We have Grand Tour stage winners here, Olympic champions and current and former Continental champions too.
The race which celebrates its 60th year in 2025 is the jewel in the crown of a surprisingly bustling Turkish cycling race schedule. It’s easily possible to race most weekends at national level in Türkiye and there are a total of 35 UCI race days there for men this year - 0 for women.
Despite this, Türkiye has struggled to produce its own top talent over the years, and it has been a long time since they have had a professional rider. In this year’s edition, however, there are a number of promising youngsters who are heading in the right direction.
This year marks 20 years since a Turkish rider (who wasn’t later suspended for doping like 2013 ‘winner’ Mustafa Sayar) won a stage of the Tour of Türkiye - Mehmet Mutlu won stage one in 2005 and Berat Alphan won stage seven in the same year when the race was a 2.2 category. Mert Mutlo won the race overall two years prior, but at that point it wasn’t sanctioned by the UCI.
Here is a rundown of the riders to watch from Türkiye, Asia and Africa at the Tour of Türkiye over the next week.
Experienced Turkish Riders
Although the above is true - that Türkiye struggles to produce top riders - there are several Turkish names on the start-list that will be familiar to regular viewers of this race over the years.
Sprinter Ahmet Örken is the most long-standing of them all, having raced on UCI Continental teams in Türkiye, Malaysia and the USA since 2012. This will be Örken’s twelfth participation in his national tour, that’s more than anyone else at the 2025 edition by quite a way. He has been Türkiye’s best sprinter for a decade and is often up in the top-5 on stages and sometimes on the podium, but has yet to take a win. He is in good form, placing 10th overall in the mountainous Tour of Mersin a couple of weeks ago.
The rider with the next-most appearances at this race is Örken’s team-mate, Feritcan Samli. It’s the 31-year-old’s ninth appearance and he will look to support Örken in the sprints and get into breakaways, as he has done on many occasions here in the past.
Serdar Depe and Burak Abay are two more riders who have featured heavily in this race in recent seasons. Expect both to get up the road on more than one occasion over the next week, particularly 2023 national champion Abay who is a strong and versatile rider. He was very solid last year and wast Türkiye’s best rider on GC in 24th.
Young Turkish Talent
Ramazan Yilmaz is one young Turkish rider who has caught attention this year. The 20-year-old sprinter has been dominant on the Turkish domestic scene so far this season and took his first UCI podium in March at the Grand Prix Apollon Temple. He also gained valuable experience racing the Olympia’s Tour in the Netherlands in March. It’s his second Tour of Türkiye and he finished just outside the top-10 on the final stage last year. Expect to see him break that barrier in the next week.
Samet Bulut was third overall in the mountain classification last season, which shows his favoured terrain. In 2024 he also took his first UCI win at the Grand Prix Yildizdagi. Expect to see him on the attack on the harder days, or perhaps hanging on to be among the best Turkish riders on GC.
22-year-old Mustafa Tekin is another solid climber. He was 13th overall at the Tour of Mersin and should get the opportunity to ride for himself in the Spor Toto team.
Eritreans will impact the race
Six Eritreans take to the start in Antalya. WorldTour veteran Natnael Berhane spearheads Istanbul Büyüksehir Belediye Spor Türkiye, which has become the best team in the country in recent years. The 2013 runner-up of this race has alongside him two talented Eritrean youngsters. Petros Mengs has shown real gifting in the climbs since joining the team in 2023 when he won the 100th Anniversary Tour of The Republic. He was recently 8th in Mersin, so has good form. Even Yemane joined the team over the winter after racing in Asia and the punchy-sprinter has made a good start with fifth in Grand Prix Antalya in February.
German team Bike Aid are here with an in-form Dawit Yemane, who has been top-10 in this race before. He was fifth in Mersin and recently raced the trio of French climbing events in the Jura, placing 30th in Classic Grand Besançon Doubs. Milkias Maekele is a rider with huge potential. The word is that he is showing number similar to a young Biniam Girmay and the African cycling community is very excited about him. If he can get into a good position on one of the sprint days, Maekele could score a very big result, however there are some powerful lead-out trains here.
The final Eritrean is the experienced Metkel Eyob racing for the Terengganu team. He is likely to be in a support role at the Tour of Türkiye with some big leaders in that squad. However, he was a surprising fourth overall at the Tour of Türkiye last year, so he can take a result himself if required to.
Other global standouts
Stefan de Bod rode like a man with a point to prove at the Tour of Mersin, taking a dominant win - the first GC victory of his career. The South African is hoping to make it back to the professional level for next season and this could be his biggest chance to grab a 2026 contract with a big General Classification result. He’s supported by a strong Terengganu team, including a pair of Malaysians. Zhe Yie Kee is the team’s young Malaysian talent. He should get his own chances to go up the road on the sprint days.
The China Glory-Mentech team are also at the race. They took advantage of XDS-Astana getting rid of seven Kazakh riders over the winter by picking up Yevgeniy Gidich and Igor Chzan. Both are here, and both have been on excellent form so far this season. Gidich was sixth in the Tour of Thailand and will lead the team in the hunt for stages. As ever, their focus is on developing young Chinese talent, but neither Changsheng Sun nor Yutao Shen are likely to feature much at this level.
Who are you looking forward to watching at the Tour of Türkiye? Who do you think will perform well?
Let me know what you think of Global Peloton by filling out this short survey
Thanks for reading Global Peloton!
The best way to support Global Peloton is to add a paid subscription. Your subscription enables me to bring you more international cycling news and stories.
If you enjoyed this post, please consider subscribing and sharing.
Or, you can Buy Me a Coffee
Global Peloton is hands down my favourite Substack. It so clearly highlights how the sport that I’m passionate about is hamstrung by racism and imperialism (eg Euro & US visa obstacles for riders from the Global South) and misogyny (eg zero opportunities for female racers in Turkey). Add to the mix barriers to entry into the sport from marginalized communities in the North.
For me, it connects all the dots for how we advance social justice while elevating cycling as a sport: work in our local communities to provide opportunities to those who face systemic barriers, while at the same time thinking globally about how we build a better world and fight the rise of fascism