Peter Sagan wins fourth stage and takes yellow jersey in Tour of Pologne 2011 – Cycling Update
Liquigas-Cannondale team’s Peter Sagan showed a tremendous performance in the fourth stage of Tour of Pologne to take overall leader’s yellow jersey in Cieszyn.
In the last finishing circuit the Liquigas-Cannondale team took control of the situation and Peter powered to beat the defending champion Daniel Martin. The 21-year-old Slovak cyclist took the total of 4 hours, 21 minutes and 15 seconds to cover the distance
of 176.9 kilometres.
After taking victory, Peter said, “Today I had good legs and the team did great work for me, we had good hopes that a group could finish in a sprint together and it happened.”
Bartolomiej Matysiak (CCC Polsat Polkowic), Federico Rocchetti (De Rosa - Ceramica Flaminia) and Chad Beyer (BMC) worked together in the bunch sprint and got clear.
All of them were joined by Polish rider Kamil Gradek and midway point of the stage they worked together and built a lead of seven minutes over the peloton. The American managed to gain a lead of 45 seconds on the approach to Cieszyn and Alexandr Pliuschin
built a gap alone while Beyer dropped.
With 16 kilometres to go, Pliuschin showed a good effort for Simon Clarke while the Australian caught and passed him back. In the final rough road the peloton broken in to small groups and Clarke got away and remained clear.
In the final lap, Liquigas-Cannondale increased his pace for making a clear path for Sagan while Vincenzo Nibali launched an attack in the front of the group. However, Peter launched an attack with the help of his team and took the victory.
Peter further added, “I'm not sure about keeping the leader's jersey until the end, because the next stages are pretty hard, I'll try, but if the rhythm is too high, I won't follow. I'm here mostly to prepare for the Vuelta."
Daniel Martin of Garmin-Cervelo was runner-up with 3 seconds behind Sagan. Marco Marcato of Vacansoleil-DCM Pro Cycling was in third place ahead of Paul Martens and Fabian Wegmann.
The previous three stage’s winner Marcel Kittel failed to hold his victory and grabbed 121st place ahead of Jaroslaw Dabrowski (Poland).
Peter Sagan took overall standing with the timing of 13 hours, 16 minutes and 35 seconds while Marco Marcato was in second place with 5 seconds behind Sagan. Romain Feillu finished third with the difference of 7 seconds ahead of Daniel Martin.
Adrian Kurek took the overall sprint standing with 13 points and Bartlomiej Matysiak took the overall KOM of the day with 33 points.
The next stage will start in Zakopane and all the cyclists will cover the distance of 201.5 kilometres.
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