Riders Set Sights on Tour of Poland
The BMC-Racing team has named Classics specialist Alessandro Ballan as their leader for the Tour of Poland. The seven-stage race runs from Sunday, August 1st to Saturday, August 7th, for a total distance of 1,276km. Ballan will be the defending champion of the Tour, finishing 2009 in first place ahead of Daniel Moreno and Edvald Boasson Hagen.
"Ballan comes out of the Tour de France in excellent form," said team director John Lelangue. "Of course, people will be marking him, so he won't have the same freedom as last year. But remember that he was wearing the rainbow jersey last year."
Ballan won a single stage, as well as the overall victory, last year in the Eastern European Tour. He also finished one stage of this year’s Tour de France in second place, and finished third overall at the Italian Championships in June of this year. His Tour of Poland will be supported by Mauro Santambrogio, who crashed out in the second half of the Tour de France.
Team Garmin will be led by the Irish cyclist Dan Martin, who followed the Irish road-race championships with a 3rd place podium spot in last week’s Brixia Tour.
“My next race is Poland and I’d like to get a big result there,” said Martin to VeloNation. “I did it last year and it’s a nice race, although sometimes quite unpredictable. We'll definitely need some luck to be racing at the front on GC, but we have a strong team going over and I'm definitely hitting some very good form.”
Dominic Klemme will be leading Saxo Bank in his first race in five weeks. The German is targeting a good performance at the third Grand Tour of the season, the Vuelta a Espana in September, and plans hit his stride in the Tour of Poland.
"The training has been going well," said Klemme to Cyclingnews. "I've had five weeks off and went for a holiday. But since then I've really ramped things up with a week at altitude followed by a week of interval training. Now I'm ready for Poland."
The German competed regularly throughout the spring, getting a 14th place finish in his first time at the Paris-Roubaix. After the break, he will follow his Tour of Poland with the Tour du Limousin and then made his very first Grand Tour appearance at 23 years of age on August 28th, targeting stage wins and a good team presentation.
"I don't know how my form will be in the first race back, but if I'm good I'll try something. But of course I'm there to help the other riders, too,” said Klemme. "With Frank [Schleck] there and ready, I'll work as best as I can for him. He wants to do a good overall but I think I'll have a few chances on a few stages too."
His performance will certainly have an effect on his plans next season. With his team disbanding and his contract ending with the season, Klemme will be looking for a good contract in his 24th year.
2010 will be the 66th edition of the Tour of Poland, and the organizers have designed the penultimate stage to pay respect to the focal point of the n**i occupation of Poland, by taking the route through Auschwitz and Auschwitz II-Birkenau, the biggest concentration camps during the war. The peloton will pause the race at Auschwitz I and observe a minute of silence.
"The goal is to communicate a message of universal peace, equality, brotherhood and trans-nationality," said the general director, Czeslaw Lang. "These important values are stronger than differences in language, ideology or religion, values that are at the heart of sport and cycling, which we can and must contribute to spreading throughout the world."
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