Bart De Clercq (Lotto Soudal) became a surprise winner of the first big climbing stage of the Tour de Pologne when he made a perfectly timed attack from a small front group to ride away with the solo victory. With no domestiques to chase him back, he held off Diego Ulissi (Lampre-Merida) and Sebastien Reichenbach (IAM) by 3 seconds and so moves into the race lead too.

 

Going into the Tour de Pologne, on one had mentioned Bart De Clercq as a potential overall winner and most of the attention in the Lotto Soudal camp was focused on Jurgen Van den Broeck and Maxime Monfort. However, after the first big climbing stage of the race, the roles have definitely been changed after De Clercq took a surprise win in the Polish mountains.

 

De Clercq had been hugely frustrated to miss out on Tour de France selection but apparently he has not missed any training. The Belgian looked strong throughout the entire stage and benefited from his status as being less marked to take off in the finale when the fast riders and GC contenders were looking at each other.

 

As they hit the bottom of the final climb with 16km to go, it was Astana who were trying to set Alexey Lutsenko up for the win. They had Diego Rosa riding hard on the front of the small front group that had been significantly whittled down on the previous climbs.

 

When the Italian swung off, it was Fabio Aru who took over and only Davide Rebellin (CCC), Davide Formolo, Moreno Moser (Cannondale-Garmin), Lutsenko, Sebastien Reichenbach, Ben Hermans (BMC), Ion IZagirre (Movistar), Ilnur Zakarin (Katusha), Christophe Riblon (Ag2r), De Clercq, Diego Ulissi, Van den Broeck, Kenny Elissonde (FDJ) and the Sky duo of Sergio Henao and Mikel Nieve could keep up with him. While Chris Anker Sørensen (Tinkoff-Saxo) rejoined the group, Van den Broeck was dropped but he made it back on an easier section while a second group fought hard in an attempt to get back.

 

Van den Broeck was dropped for good and surprisingly Lutsenko was the next to lose contact, alongside Elissonde and Sørensen. It took some time for Aru to realize that he had dropped his captain and when he finally swung off, Nieve went straight to the front to continue the hard pace-setting.

 

That was the signal for Formolo to make an attack and he immediately got a gap. Aru joined him but as he refused to do any work, Henao, Rebellin, Reichenbach and Hermans joined them before they got to the summit where Henao accelerated to win the KOM sprint. Izagirre, Zakarin, Moser, Riblon and De Clercq were a little further back and then it was Ulissi and Nieve.

 

Formolo accelerated immediately and was joined by Aru as they went down the descent. He even dropped his compatriot while a reshuffling took place behind. With 9km to, Aru, Izagirre, Hermans, Rebellin and Henao joined the lone Italian before Moser, Riblon, De Clercq, Ulissi and Reichenbach also made it back. Finally, Nieve made it back to make it a 12-rider group. Formolo beat Aru and Henao in the intermediate sprint.

 

Nieve used the lack of cooperation to take off and he quickly got a big gap. Reichenbach joined him and later Riblon, Aru and Hermans also made it across. The two groups were separated by a few metres for a little while but with 3km to go, it came back together.

 

The pace went down and this opened the door for De Clercq to take off. No one reacted and so he got a big gap before Formolo and Nieve finally started to chase. Meanwhile, Zakarin rejoined the chase group.

 

Moser disappeared from the front group – probably due to a mechanical – while Ulissi and Reichenbach took off in pursuit as they passed the flamme rouge. However, it was too late and De Clercq held on to win the stage with a 3-second advantage over Ulissi and Reichenbach. Henao led the chase group home with a time loss of 6 seconds.

 

With the win, De Clercq also takes the leaders jersey and he goes into the queen stage with a 4-second advantage over Ulissi. It won’t be easy for him to defend his position in the hardest stage of the race which is held on a hilly circuit. The riders will have to cover a total of 9 tough climbs, with the final of those ascents leading to the finish in Bukowina Tatrzanska.

 

A tough climbing stage

After yesterday’s appetizer, it was finally time for the GC riders to show their cards in stage 5 which brought the riders over a massive 223km from Nowy Sacz to Zakopane. After a realtively easy start, the riders got to the tough finishing circuit that included three category 1 climbs. The riders did almost a full lap with two of the climbs and then ended the stage by doing two laps. The final ascent was located 12km from the finish and then it was mainly a downhill run to the finish where the final three kilometres were slightly uphill at 2-3%.

 

It was another great summer day in Poland when the riders gathered for the start. Two riders were absent as Nikias Arndt (Giant-Alpecin) and Eugenio Alafaci (Trek) had decided to head home after the sprint stages.

 

Lots of attacks

In the last few stages, the break has been formed almost straight from the gun but it was no surprise that the hilly course inspired more riders to go on the attack. Hence, it took some time for the early break to be formed.

 

Andrey Zeits (Astana), Jasha Sütterlin (Movistar), Yaroslav Popovych (Trek), Silvan Dillier (BMC) and Sergei Chernetskii (Katusha) formed the first promising move but they were quickly reabsorbed. Instead, the attacking continued, with Ag2r and Lotto Soudal being particularly active.

 

The break takes off

After 8.5km of racing, the fast pace made the peloton split in two, with a 30-rider group getting and advantage of 5 seconds. After a few kilometres of furious chasing, it came back together and after Bert De Backer (Giant-Alpecin) had worked his way back to the peloton after a puncture, it was a compact peloton that got to the 15km mark.

 

The elastic finally snapped when Edward Beltran (Tinkoff-Saxo), Grega Bole (CCC), Sebastien Rurgot (Ag2r) and the Lotto Soudal trio of Kris Boeckmans, Vegard Breen and Boris Vallee escaped. The peloton slowed down and at the 20km mark, the sextet already had an advantage of 1.35.

 

The Polish national team takes control

The peloton took it easy after the hectic start and so the gap had gone out to 5.55 after 33km of racing. The Polish National Team had taken control in the peloton and they kept the gap between the 5- and 6-minute marks for most of the early part of the race.

 

With 153km to go, the team of the race leader had allowed the gap to 6.20 and when they hit the first climb, it was still 6 minutes. At this point, Sky and Astana started to work with the Polish National Team.

 

KOM points for Bole

Bole and Beltran sprinted for the points at the top and it was the Slovenian who came out on top. Breen was third, Boeckmans fourth and Vallee fifth while the peloton had reduced the gap to 4.07.

 

Boeckmans was dropped from the break on the next climb while Turgot managed to get back after having been distanced for a while. However, he had to change his bike just as he made the junction and would never make it back to the leaders.

 

Turgot is caught

When Bole won the second KOM sprint ahead of Beltran, Breen, Vallee and Turgot, the latter had been distanced by 1.10 while the peloton was 4 minutes behind. Boeckmans was caught by the peloton.

 

At the start of the first full lap of the circuit, Turgot was 2.10 behind the escapees while the peloton still was at 4 minutes. The Frenchman decided to sit up and he was brought back by the peloton which was 2.40 behind when they entered the final 100km.

 

Sky do some damage

As they hit the third climb, the gap was still 2 minutes and it was Bole who won the KOM sprint ahead of Beltran, Breen and Vallee. The four riders worked well together and when they hit the next climb, they still had an advantage of 2.20.

 

Sky continued to ride hard with Ian Boswell and Salvatore Puccio and that was too much for race leader Kamil Zielinski who was dropped on the ascent. Vallee was dropped from the front group before Bole beat Beltran and Breen in the KOM sprint but made it back on the descent.

 

Beltran takes off

As they hit the next climb, Breen and Vallee were dropped and later Bole also lost contact. Vallee was the first to get caught and later Breen and Bole were also back in the peloton. He crested the summit with a 50-second advantage while Boswell, Puccio, Nieve and Henao were first from the 70-rider peloton.

 

Sky continued to ride hard and so Beltran was caught as they approached the start of the final lap. At this point, Zielinski had already been distanced by 3 minutes.

 

Astana take control

Movistar also started to work with Francisco Ventoso before the attacking started. Sander Armee and Simon Clarke briefly got a gap before Sørensen took off. Mattia Cattaneo, Andrey Zeits, Clarke joined him and moments later, a big group had gathered in the front, with the likes of Armee, Riblon, Bert-Jan Lindeman, Nieve, Paolo Tiralongo, Alessandro De Marchi, Lawrence Warbasse, Elissonde, De Clercq, Lutsenko all there.

 

The group was too big and was brought back by the time they hit the first climb of the circuit. Here Astana hit the front with Zeits and Rosa who whittled the group down to just 42 riders at the top. Armee briefly tried to attack but he was slowly reeled in before Sørensen accelerated to lead Zeits and Rosa over the top.

 

Henao takes off

Zeits continued to set the pace on the descent and was only interrupted by Ulissi and Manuele Mori who sprinted ahead to win the intermediate sprint with 23km to go. Moments, later the Kazakh hit the next climb where Rosa quickly took over.

 

Henao launched a strong attack but Rosa slowly reeled him in before they got to the summit. Here he led his teammate over the top and continued the pace-setting on the descent. Moments later, he hit the final climb where the action really started.