Captivating a nation: the Tour de Pologne’s path to becoming Poland’s biggest annual sporting event

It’s no secret that bike races everywhere have an exceptional knack for building their way into a nation’s collective social and cultural fabric. The Tour de France has always been part of France’s summer holidays, after all, and the devotion of the Giro d’Italia’s tifosi to Italy’s biggest two-wheeled event is well-known far beyond the country’s frontiers..

However, while not all week-long stage races manage to achieve such deep connections with their local fans and history, the Tour de Pologne is clearly an exception to that unwritten rule. 

For example, organisers estimated the number of fans gathering to watch local star Michal Kwiatkowski take his first Tour de Pologne in 2018 at around three million - and to judge by the massive numbers of Pologne spectators roadsides last August in cities like Krakow and Rzeszow,  that popularity shows no sign of diminishing. Equally impressively, a few years back a global total of no less than 300 million Pologne fans watched the race worldwide on TV.

Many of these TV viewers and roadside fans are not dedicated year-long cycling supporters, of course. But as local analysts point out, interest and affection for the Tour de Pologne have deep roots in Poland and stretch well beyond its 95-year racing history.

“It’s not just the biggest annual sporting event in Poland, it’s probably the biggest in our part of Europe,” says Kamil Wolnicki, a Polish journalist who began covering the Tour de Pologne back in 2006 and whose newspaper, Przegląd Sportowy Onet, was jointly responsible for founding the race, together with the  Warsaw Cyclists' Association, back in 1928.

“Year after year, it seems like everybody you talk to here in Poland knows the Tour de Pologne is going to happen.”

“In terms of single-day sports events, football and ski-jumping are definitely more popular. But the Tour de Pologne lasts an entire week, and that’s where it ‘wins’.”

This deep-seated popularity is perhaps all the more remarkable given that for decades after World War II, another top central European cycling event, the Peace Race “was the most important race here, because it was favoured by the authorities.”

“The Peace Race was a stage race that covered the entire Communist ‘bloc’ of countries like the Czech Republic and  former East Germany as well as Poland, so the Tour de Pologne was kept in the shadows.”

But just like in Poland in general, after the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, “a lot changed in the Tour de Pologne, particularly when [current race director] Czeslaw Lang took over in 1993.”

“The race went from amateur-only to professional that year, and Lang invested very heavily in getting media coverage. That really helped.”

“The benefits still can be seen now, in fact. These days almost every Polish media outlet has articles or news about Pologne, the race has lots of media partners including Polsat, the most widely watched TV station here.” This year the race also has a new major sponsor, Orlen.

“Lang has cast his net wide when looking to whip up media interest. He has cooperated with the cinema, with Polish railways, the Polish state tourist board and even the Polish Post Office,” with a commemorative stamp for the Tour de Pologne’s 80th edition being produced earlier this year.

Lang himself is well aware the recent economic and social history of Poland and the Tour de Pologne itself are very close entwined. For example?  “When I first organised this race, it was difficult to find a suitable hotel to accommodate the cyclists,” Lang said a few years back. “We have no problems with that today. On the contrary - we have some of the best hotels in Europe.”

“For years, the race was a mirror image of what was happening in our country. If a documentary about the race in the last quarter of a century was created, a film about how Poland has developed would come out.”

Part of Pologne’s individual appeal is doubtless the organiser’s ability to think outside the box when it comes to the race’s broader social and cultural role. In 2010, the anniversary of the birth of Poland’s most famous classical music composer Chopin in 1810, a grand piano was transported around the entire race for a pianist to entertain crowds with live versions of Chopin’s Sonatas and Nocturnes. The same year, a stage held in the town of Cieszyn, split in two by the Czech-Polish border, deliberately finished on a circuit that repeatedly crossed the frontier in a symbolic gesture of bringing the city together. 

Then in 2022, Pologne spent much of the first half of the race on Poland’s eastern frontier, in a show of solidarity for neighbours Ukraine following the ongoing invasion by Russia.

The fact that Pologne has been a WorldTour race since 2008 is also crucial to its high profile, with a first big jump in TV spectator figures to 22 million in total coming that year as well as gaining first-time major coverage in France with TV channel Canal+ and in Germany with ARD. The WorldTour also guaranteed the appearance of some of the top names, although on home soil it’s the Polish names like former winners Kwiatkowski (Ineos Grenadiers) and Rafal Majka (UAE Team Emirates) that matter the most to the public.

“A few years back there weren’t any Polish riders in the scene,” Wolnicki points out, “Lang said he’s prepared the theatre and he was waiting for the Polish actors.”

“But of course, Kwia’ and Majka are regulars here and when they’re in good shape, so much better. This year, after his stage win in the Tour de France, Kwia’ should be flying.”

At the other end of the spectrum, the Tour de Pologne makes sure it stretches well beyond the professional race itself and into more accessible sporting formats as well. The Tour de Pologne has the ORLEN Nations Grand Prix, part of the UCI U-23 Nations Cup in late May, under its auspices as well. Then there is the three-day ORLEN Tour de Pologne, held since 2010, and last but not least the four-stage Junior Tour de Pologne, held each year on parts of the professional route. All of these events help draw in a younger, more varied fanbase, as well as riders of all categories, and of course, diehard cycling supporters.

Then don’t forget there are all the usual factors, too, Kamil Wolnicki concludes, that make bike racing popular across the world. 

“It’s the same as any bike race - no other top-level event can happen right outside your front door and it’s free, too. That’s the same as any other country of course  - but it also counts.”