Tour of Poland Off to an Aggressive Start
On Sunday, Polish cycling fans waited in Warsaw in anticipation of an exciting battle for the finish line in the first stage of the Tour of Poland. The fans were not disappointed when an aggressive struggle saw a severe pile-up 1.5km from the finish line and threw several riders into the barriers in the final sprint. The stage was won by Jacopo Guarnieri, riding for Team Liquigas, a stage winner in last year's Tour of Poland.
"It's a really important success for me. Maybe the most important one of my career," said Guarnieri. "I've been racing at the professional level only for three years and so far I haven't had too many chances to compete in many big races."
The 22-year-old Italian race leader earned his first professional victory by winning a stage the 2009 Tour of Poland. In the first stage of the 2010 edition, he jumped ahead from the small leading group that remained after the massive crash within the last two kilometers, trailed by Aitor Galdos and Allan Davis. Despite the wide roads of Warsaw, the contenders were jockeying for position and JJ Haedo was one of a number of riders to end up crashing into the barriers, only to watch from the ground as Guarnieri crossed the finish line.
"I'm not the only Liquigas-Doimo sprinter in the Polish race. There is also Daniele Bennati and Peter Sagan and I'm really happy that I was able to win on the first day and claim the yellow jersey," said Guarnieri.
A selection of Polish riders didn’t disappoint the pre-race predictions and took the early breakaway, led by Lukasz Bodnar of the national team. His attempt didn’t stick, and a second breakaway was led by his teammate Blazej Janiaczyk 10km into the race, to reach a maximum lead of six minutes early in the race. Timothy Gudsell crashed in the peloton early on and had to abandon the Tour due to injury.
The stage was dedicated to Polish composer Fryederyk Chopin, whose virtuosic piano compositions accompanied the start of the stage in commemoration of the 200th anniversary of his birth. The route included an intermediate sprint near his birthplace, which was won by Janiaczyk, and earned him a trophy depicting Chopin. Janiaczyk went on to win three of the first four intermediate sprints and will enter the second stage as the points classification leader. The stage also included an intermediate sprint in commemoration of the 66th anniversary of the Warsaw Uprising, which was won by Michael Schar of BMC-Racing.
Team HTC-Columbia set the pace for the peloton and closed the gap to the leaders to nearly one minute at 80km from the finish line. The escapees regained some of that lead when the peloton was slowed by the feed zone, achieving a gap of 2:40. HTC-Columbia still led the peloton but was not in a hurry to catch the breakaway, shrinking the gap to 35 seconds 30km from the finish line. Ultimately, they were caught at 22km.
One of the escapees, Laszlo Bodrogi, leapt ahead of the rest, only to be caught by the aggressive Maciej Bodnar, who made up for his failed breakaway by taking that stage’s only climbing points and earning the "King of the Mountains" jersey.
Eight kilometers from the finish line, everybody was back in the peloton, and the teams were trying to set up their sprinters for the finish line in Warsaw. That’s when the massive pile-up happened, just before the final kilometer, rendering the defending champion Alessando Ballan out of commission and setting up Guarnieri to take the lead out of the chaos. He will enter the second stage as the overall leader.
Tags: