Marcel Kittel retains his lead in third stage of Tour de Pologne 2011 - Cycling News
Skil-Shimano team’s Marcel Kittel again won the mass sprint of the third stage of Tour de Pologne 2011 on Tuesday, August 2. Kittel maintained his overall leader’s yellow jersey.
The race started in Bedzin and ended in Katowice. In the beginning of the stage, the two strong teams including Omega Pharma-Lotto and HTC-Highroad started their lead out and Kittel gained an advantage and hit the front.
The sprint is difficult for the cyclists but Kittel had good legs so he easily beat the other cyclists and covered the distance of 135.7 kilometres in 3 hours, 9 minutes and 29 seconds.
Romain Feillu of Vacansoleil-DCM was runner-up and Jonas Aaen Jorgensen of Saxo Bank Sungard was in third place with the same timing of Kittel. A 138 cyclists crossed the finish line with the same timing of Sprinter.
The five cyclists that had a dominating breakaway included Arkimedes Arguelyes (Katusha), Gianluca Maggiore (DeRosa-Ceramina Flaminia), Lukasz Bodnar (CCC Polsat-Polkowice), Daniel Sesma (Euskaltel-Euskadi), and Piotr Gawronski (Poland).
All of them managed to gain a lead and took the points in the three intermediate sprints. When they reached in Katowice all of them gained an advantage of five minutes but in the final lap they attacked each other.
Lukasz Bodnar made several attacks and managed to get away. He gained a lead of 20 seconds but after 11 kilometres, the peloton chased him and brought him back.
The Omega Pharma-Lotto team showed a good effort and stepped up the sprint for Adam Blythe and Vacansoleil-DCM took a lead in final kilometres. Leopard Trek riders launched an attack and Omega Pharma-Lotto hit out.
However, in the last kilometres Skil-Shimano team controlled the situation and Kittel increased his pace with the help of his team. Kittel made the right move and crossed the finish line ahead of the other cyclists.
After winning the stage, Kittel told the media, "I’m thrilled with this victory, It was a super-fast final sprint, my bike’s computer surpassed 78 km/h!, When I moved up to the pros, everyone thought I was a time triallist after the good results I obtained
in this specialty among the U23s."
Pawel Cieslik was in good form and tried to catch the leading riders and launch an attack but failed. He placed at the bottom with the difference of 20 seconds ahead of Pierre Cazaux and Andrew Talansky.
QuickStep cycling team was in first place in team standing with timing of 26 hours, 46 minutes and 30 seconds. HTC-Highroad was in second spot and Saxo Bank Sungard was in third place while Skil-Shimano team was in 11th place.
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