Ulissi wins opening stage at Tour of Poland

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Diego Ulissi (Lampre-Merida) won the opening stage of the Tour of Poland, 184.5km in the Italian Dolomites from Rovereto to Madonna di Campiglio, the first of two days in Italy as the Polish race travelled outside its borders for the first time in its 70-year-history.

The 24-year-old Italian sprinted to victory on the summit finish ahead of Darwin Atapuma (Colombia) and Rafal Majka (Team Saxo-Tinkoff) as part of an elite 15-rider group which formed on the 11km climb to the finish.

Having won today's opening stage, Ulissi earned the first leader's jersey at the 2013 Tour of Poland. With time bonuses factored in Atapuma holds second overall at four seconds, followed by Majka at six seconds. The remainder of the riders finishing in the front group now all trail Ulissi by 10 seconds.

"I was coming back to the races after a month off from competition and I didn't think I'd be so competitive right out of the gate," said Ulissi. "It was hard work but I managed to keep up with the best and so in the final I tried to not give up because I knew I was one of the fastest riders in the little lead group. I'm very happy."

Ulissi's stage win was his third victory of the season and all have come on Italian soil. Earlier this season the Lampre-Merida rider won a stage plus the overall at the Settimana Coppi e Bartali and Ulissi was pleased to add a WorldTour victory to his palmares.

"The Tour de Pologne is a very important World Tour race and moreover this year we took off from Italy and this adds a larger sense of achievement," said Ulissi. "The goal was to come here to try and win a stage and I managed to do so right away. Tomorrow we have a very difficult stage ahead of us with the arrival at Pordoi and other riders are definitely going to try to attack me but I'm going to try to defend this jersey although I know it won't be easy."

The day's early break was comprised of Bartosz Huzarski (Team NetApp-Endura), Serge Pauwels (Omega Pharma-QuickStep), Marco Pinotti (BMC), Cédric Pineau (FDJ.fr), Valerio Agnoli (Astana) and Bartlomiej Matysiak (CCC Polsat) and the escapees pushed out a maximum advantage of nine minutes. The break would split with first Agnoli and Matysiak dropping off the pace, then Pinotti and Pineau would lose contact. Huzarski and Pauwels continued in the lead and the pair survived off the front all the way to the early slopes of the finishing climb. Once on the ascent to the category one Madonna di Campiglio summit finish Pauwels dropped Huzarski but both riders would soon be absorbed and dropped by the Cannondale-led peloton.

Cannondale's Cayetano Sarmiento launched the first attack from the peloton, but the Colombian was soon brought back. Tomasz Marczynski (Vacansoleil-DCM) was the next rider to accelerate away from the ever diminishing peloton and the Pole would be joined by teammate Rafael Valls and Alex Howes (Garmin-Sharp). This attack, too, would be neutralised with Pieter Weening (Orica-GreenEdge) launching a solo counter-attack.

With six kilometres to go the 32-year-old Dutchman's lead stood at 35 seconds with Cannondale spearheading the pursuit. The chase group would fracture as the pace on the climb took its toll and ultimately a group of 14 riders would emerge in the chase of Weening. Last year's third place overall finisher at the Tour of Poland, Sergio Henao (Sky) plus Domenico Pozzovivo (AG2R La Mondiale) were among those riding aggressively on the finishing ascent. Notably absent from the pointy end of the race were Vincenzo Nibali (Astana) and Bradley Wiggins (Sky), both competing for the first time since the Tour of Italy.

Eros Capecchi (Movistar), Chris Anker Sorensen (Saxo-Tinkoff) and Croatian champion Robert Kiserlovski (RadioShack Leopard) surged away from the chase group but the RadioShack Leopard rider wasn't able to keep their pace and fell back. Eros Capecchi and Chris Anker Sorensen, however, made contact with Weening just prior to the Madonna Di Campiglio KOM, which was situated 2.5km from the finish line.

The Saxo-Tinkoff Dane led the trio across the KOM line and while the road still sloped upwards for the remainder of the stage, the gradient eased, enabling the riders to shift into their big rings.

Several riders attacked from the 12-rider chase group, but when the dust settled the three-rider break was neutralised and 15 riders were now together at the head of the race inside the final kilometre.

The irrepressible Pieter Weening launched another solo attack, but the Dutchman was caught at approximately 300m to go, resulting in a sprint finale claimed by Ulissi.

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