Kayden Groves took almost a season to make all the podium steps last year, but this season he took first, second, and third in the Tour of Turkey.

The 23-year-old BikeExchange-Jayco rider started the day with a third-place finish on stage 1 and then took the win on stage 2, steering away from Jasper Philippsen (Alpecin-Phoenix) to take the lead in both stages and the overall. In the second stage, he out-raced Jasper Philipsen (Alpecin Phoenix) to finish in second place.

"I can't blame everyone for today. It's been a really great week so far. Today was another organized run in the lead-out and everyone did a really good job."

"In the end, I was simply outclassed by the faster guys."

With second place, Groves earned his tenth podium finish of the season. His stage 2 win was his second of the season (his first was at Volta a Catalunya).

The Queenslander's turnaround began at the end of the 2021 season, when the rider began to recover from a series of setbacks and took his first European win in September. Prior to that, Ryder, who won his first international event in China at age 18, had not reached the pinnacle of individual victories since February 2020, when he won two stages at the Jayco Herald Sun Tour in Australia.

Groves' podium run this season was capped by the return of Michael Matthews in 2021 and the early season addition of Dylan Groenewegen to the team, making the rider a valuable part of BikeExchange-Jayco's enhanced sprint group and firmly established himself as a member of BikeExchange-Jayco's enhanced sprint group.

Groves also took the overall lead at the Tour of Turkey with a stage 2 victory, but had to cede the race leader's turquoise jersey to Philipsen for second place on stage 3.

Still, even though the BikeExchange-Jayco rider showed that Groves could hold on on some of the climbs, the summit finish of stage 4 shuffled even the hardest finishers down the overall standings for the eight-day race We did not expect to hold on for very long anyway, as it is expected to be a very long race.

Sprinters will have to wait for their chance at Ivalc, the finish line of stage 5.

"Tomorrow we have the GC stage with Kevin [Colleoni] and we are taking it one day at a time. No falls today, everyone is healthy and ready for the rest of the week."