Peter Sagan retains his overall lead in fifth stage of Tour de Pologne 2011 – Cycling Update
Liquigas-Cannondale team’s Peter Sagan retained his stage wins and also maintained his overall leader’s yellow jersey in the fifth stage of Tour de Pologne 2011 in Zakopane on Thursday, August 4.
The 21-year-old Slovak professional road bicycle racer took the total of 4 hours, 52 minutes and 26 seconds to cover the distance of 201.5 kilometres.
After winning the stage, Peter told the media, "I didn't think I could win today, but the team did a so good work in the final! [Romain] Feillu did a very long sprint but finally I got it."
With 23 kilometres remaining on the first climb, the group of five cyclists made their first breakaway lead including, Ruslan Pydgornyy (Vacansoleil-DCM), Albert Timmer (Skil – Shimano), Mateusz Taciak (CCC Polsat Polkowice), Miguel Minguez Ayala (Euskaltel-Euskadi)
and Vasili Kiryienka (Movistar Team).
All of them worked well together in the tenth climb of the day and leaving two riders Pydgornyy and Kiryienka in the front of the stage.
Kiryienka dropped but at 100 kilometres mark Pydgornny managed to stay in the race and build an advantage of 8 minutes but the Italian team sent their two cyclists Diego Ulissi and Simon Spilak up the road to chase Pydgornny. While the trio successfully
caught the leading rider and brought him back before Wout Poels led the peloton.
In the final climb, Marek Rutkiewicz was the next cyclists who able to build a gap of 10 seconds before being caught by Liquigas.
In the final five kilometres, Peter increased his pace and crossed the finish line first ahead of the other cyclists.
Michael Matthews of Rabobank Cycling was runner-up and Heinrich Haussler (Garmin-Cervelo) finished third with the same timing of Sagan.
Romain Feillu tried his best to catch the leading cyclists but failed to hold his pace and grabbed sixth place ahead of David Tanner.
Felliu said, "In the last kilometre I asked [Marco] Marcato to launch the sprint but he didn't hear me. So I decided to try to surprise Sagan and I launched from afar. I didn't know how far, it's impossible as I was focused on my sprint, the dangers, etc.
It was obviously too early."
Peter took the overall standing with the timing of 18 hours, 8 minutes and 51 seconds. Marco Marcato was in second spot with 15 seconds and Romain Feillu was in third place with 17 seconds behind Sagan.
The next stage will start in Bukovina Terma Hotel Spa and end in Bukowina Tatrzańska. All the cyclists will cover the distance of 207.7 kilometres. It will be interesting to see which rider comes out on top in the next competitive stage.
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