Rafal Majka (Tinkoff-Saxo) became a popular winner of the queen stage of the Tour de Pologne when he won a tough uphill sprint from a 20-rider group. The Pole held off the Movistar pair of Benat Intxausti and Ion Izagirre to take his third professional victory while a fighting Petr Vakoc (Omega Pharma-Quick Step) retained the lead by just a single second.

 

Going into the Tour de Pologne, Rafal Majka had done nothing to hide his intention to win his home race overall and today he put himself in position for doing that when he won the queen stage. In the uphill finish in Slovakia, the Pole emerged as the strongest when a 20-rider group sprinted for the win.

 

All day Majka had used his Tinkoff-Saxo team to make the race as hard as possible and whittle down the peloton while the local hero was preparing himself of the finale. However, he faced a tough ask in a stage that may have had a summit finish but was a bit too easy to suit a pure climber like him perfectly.

 

The finishing circuit was made up of a 10km climb which would be tackled three times and whose average gradient of below 5% made it one for puncheurs more than climbers. The finish line was located at the top of an extra 1.5km section that included a 16% section and this was where Majka made the difference.

 

As expected, the climb was not suited to attacks and even though riders like Robert Gesink (Belkin), Pieter Weening (Orica-GreenEDGE) and Ryder Hesjedal (Garmin) all tried to make a difference, everything was neutralized by the peloton which was mostly led by the Tinkoff-Saxo team. Inside the final two kilometres, however, Majka was left isolated and had to rely on other riders to bring back the many attacks.

 

With less than a kilometre to go, Weening seemed to have made the difference but a strong turn by Sergey Firsanov (Rusvelo) and a subsequent attack by Andrey Amador (Movistar) brought the defending champion back. With strength in numbers, however, Movistar had lots of cards to play and instead Benat Intxausti launched a move.

 

Gianluca Brambilla (Omega Pharma-Quick Step) followed the Basque and stayed glued to his wheel until he launched his sprint with less than 300m to go. Meanwhile, Majka was preparing himself for his own stinging acceleration which he launched at the same time.

 

While Brambilla passed Intxausti and looked destined to take the win, Majka powered down the middle of the row and passed the fading Italian. He even had time to celebrate his third professional victory after his two Tour de France stage wins less than a month ago. Intxausti held onto second to score important bonus seconds while another Movistar rider Ion Izagirre finished third.

 

Race leader Petr Vakoc fought heroically to stay in contact with the group but had to surrender inside the final two kilometres. The Czech did his best to limit his losses and accomplished his mission as he retains the jersey by keeping a 1-second advantage over Majka.

 

Majka didn’t gain much time on the stronger time triallists but has another chance in tomorrow’s stage which is the well-known one to Bukowina Tatrzanska. The race is mostly made up of 4 laps of a tugh circuit with 3 climbs, with the final one leading to the finish. However, none of them are very steep and time differences are again expected to be a matter of seconds.

 

The queen stage

After four stages for the sprinters, it was finally time for the climbers to come to the fore when the Tour de Pologne continued with its queen stage. At 190km, it brought the riders from Zakopane over the border and into Slovakia to a finish on a challenging circuit in Strbske Pleso. After a mostly flat start with only two smaller climbs, the riders went up the final category 1 climb three times in the finale, with the finish coming at the top after the final passage.

 

The peloton took the start under torrential rain but two riders had already had enough. Luka Mezgec (Giant) had travelled home to recover from injuries sustained in a crash in stage 1 while David Boucher (FDJ) followed a pre-race plan to only do the first four stages.

 

The break takes off

As usual in this kind of stages, the start was very fast as lots of riders wanted to be part of the early break. A Movistar rider and a rider from the national team attacked right from the gun and when they were brought back, a 6-rider group briefly had a gap.

 

Fabio Silvestre (Trek) and a CCC rider were the next to give it a try but their move wasn’t the successful one either. The elastic snapped when Sebastian Lander (BMC) and Jimmy Engoulvent (Europcar) attacked and gradually a bigger group formed around those two riders.

 

More riders join the group

First Yaroslav Popovych (Trek), Hugo Houle (Ag2r) and Pawel Bernas (Poland) bridged the gap and later Matteo Bono (Lampre-Merida), Marco Haller (Katusha) and Maciej Paterski (CCC) also joined the move. The 8 riders fought hard for a little while to build an advantage but when Bernas had won the special sprint after 20 minutes of racing, the peloton finally slowed down.

 

The gap reached 2.15 before OPQS started to control the situation for race leader Petr Vakoc. They kept the gap stable around the 2.30 mark until they hit the bottom of the first climb.

 

Tinkoff show their intentions

Here Paterski beat Popovych, Lander and Bono in the KOM sprint to reclaim the mountains jersey that he had lost yesterday. At the top, the gap had been extended to 3.45 but now Tinkoff-Saxo joined OPQS on the front in an attempt to set up Rafal Majka for the win.

 

The gap started to come down and when Bernas beat Lander and Paterski in the first intermediate sprin, it was just 2.55. Bernas was again the fastest in the second sprint, this time holding off Paterski and Haller, and at that point the gap was 2.50.

 

Trek kick into action

Tinkoff-Saxo and OPQS kept the gap stable around that mark as the riders tackled the second climb of the day. Again Paterski took maximum points, leading Lander and Haller across the line.

 

Thomas De Gendt (OPQS) and Nicki Sørensen (Tinkoff-Saxo) were trading pulls as the group hit the main climb for the first time. Halfway up the climb, Trek decided to make things hard when Fabio Felline and Bob Jungels attacked and they were joined by Johan Le Bon (FDJ) and Adriano Malori (Movistar).

 

Lander and Paterski take off

De Gendt was riding hard on the front of the peloton in an attempt to reel them in but he continued to lose time. Meanwhile, Lander attacked and only Paterski could keep up with the Dane.

 

Rory Sutherland (Tinkoff-Saxo), Sergei Chernetskii (Katusha), Manuele Mori (Lampre-Merida) and Christian Meier (Orica-GreenEDGE) joined the Jungels group which gradually reeled in the big chase group. Meanwhile, Paterski launched his own attack and the Pole was the lone leader when he crested the summit of the climb.

 

Lander rejoins Paterski

Lander managed to rejoin Paterski on the descent while OPQS had now taken complete control in the peloton. De Gendt, Kevin De Weert, Serge Pauwels and Martin Velits were working hard to control the situation.

 

The Jungels group caught the big chase group and at the bottom of the descent, they also brought Paterski and Lander back to form a very big front group. Popovych, Haller and Bono were all doing a lot of work for their teammates in the valley while Garmin-Sharp had now joined OPQS on the front of the peloton, with Lasse Norman, Steele Von Hoff and Koldo Fernandez all taking huge turns on the front.

 

The break splits up

At the bottom of the climb, the front group started to explode. Popovych and Haller were the first to get dropped and later Engoulvent and Bernas also had to surrender. Meanwhile, Belkin had also started to work in the peloton, with David Tanner and Paul Martens both contributing to the pace-setting.

 

Meier attacked from the breakaway and quickly opened a nice little gap. Meanwhile, Bono dropped back to the peloton that was now led by the Garmin duo of Nathan Brown and Caleb Fairly.

 

Hesjedal attacks

They set Ryder Hesjedal up for an attack and the Canadian passed Paterski and Lander who had been dropped from the break. Sutherland, Le Bon and Chernetskii had split the chase group and were now in pursuit of Meier.

 

As they neared the summit, most of the race came back together as only Meier managed to stay clear. Sebastian Henao (Sky) launched an immediate counterattack and got a solid gap.

 

More attacks

The attacking continued as Le Bon, Warren Barguil (Giant), Josh Edmondson (Sky), Przemyslaw Niemiec (Lampre) and Stephen Cummings (BMC) all tried but nothing stuck. At the top, only Meier and Henao were still ahead.

 

Evgeny Petrov (Tinkoff-Saxo) and Hesjedal attacked on the descent but they were both brought back. Moments later, Henao was also back in the fold which opened the door for Johannes Fröhlinger (Giant) and Marek Rutkiewicz (CCC) to accelerate.

 

Meier is caught

The pair dangled a few metres ahead for a little while but as Tinkoff-Saxo started to organize a chase with Sørensen riding on the front, they were brought back. Bruno Pires and Jesus Hernandez were the next to take over and they started to close the gap to Meier.

 

As the battle for position intensified, BMC hit the front with Lander and Stephen Cummings and that spelled the end for Meier. At the bottom of the final climb, Sutherland took over the pace-setting and his fast pace caused the peloton to split to pieces.

 

Gesink attacks

Petrov took over from his Australian teammate but with 5km to go, the Tinkoff-Saxo machine got into trouble when Kanstantsin Siutsou (Sky) attacked. This forced Oliver Zaugg into action but the Swiss had no response when Robert Gesink (Belkin) took off in pursuit of Siutsou.

 

Rusvelo hit the front and brought things back together. Gesink continued to ride on the front until Ilnur Zakarin (Rusvelo) launched an attack.

 

Hesjedal tries again

Pawel Poljanski took over the pace-setting for Tinkoff-Saxo but it was a huge turn by Fabio Aru (Astana) that brought Zakarin back. With 2km to go, Hesjedal and Weening attacked but Sergey Firsanov shut it down for Rusvelo.

 

Hesjedal continued to ride on the front and this spelled the end for Vakoc who finally had to surrender. Just before the flamme rouge, Weening launched an attack and he opened a promising gap.

 

Majka wins the sprint

Firsanov led the chase but it was an acceleration by Niemiec that almost brought Weening back. That’s when Amador accelerated to pass the Dutchman but Majka shut it down.

 

That opened the door for Intxausti to launch his acceleration and it seemed that he and BRambilla wuld be deciding the stage. However, Majka had different plans and manage to pass both of them to take the stage win.