Fernando Gaviria in the points jersey(Image credit: Tim de Waele/TDWSport.com)
Stage winner Fernando Gaviria celebrates(Image credit: Tim de Waele/TDWSport.com)
Fernando Gaviria leads Tour de Pologne(Image credit: Tim de Waele/TDWSport.com)
Fernando Gaviria leads Tour de Pologne(Image credit: Tim de Waele/TDWSport.com)
The sprint on stage 2 of Tour de Pologne(Image credit: Tim de Waele/TDWSport.com)
Fernando Gaviria made it two wins in two days at the Tour de Pologne for Etixx-QuickStep as the 21-year-old Colombian outsprinted Team Sky's Elia Viviani and Orica-BikeExchange's Caleb Ewan in Katowice. The win, Gaviria's second at WorldTour level, also saw him move into the leader's yellow jersey with teammate and stage 1 winner Davide Martinelli dropping to second.
"The final on this circuit was very difficult and complicated. It was a incredible sprint; we were going really fast; in fact, I managed to win by a matter of centimetres over Viviani and Ewan," said Gaviria who is aiming to claim gold in the omnium at next month's Olympic Games in Rio.
"The team raced very well, we knew there would be a breakaway group but we couldn’t let them get too far ahead of us. In fact, the pack kept the attackers in check."
The 128km second stage, which took place from Tarnowskie Góry to Katowice, was animated by a five-man breakaway who were kept in check by the sprint teams in anticipation for the bunch gallop finish. Yellow jersey holder Martinelli returned to lead out duties after his stage win in Warszawa to deliver Gaviria to his fourth win of the season following stages at Tour de San Luis, La Provence and Tirreno-Adriatico.
Despite several challenging days to come, Gaviria is aiming to hold onto his leader's jersey for a few days as he explained.
"Tomorrow I will try to defend the yellow jersey, but I know that in the days to come there are going to be some difficult stages," added Gaviria who enjoys a six second lead of Martinelli with Ewan third at eight seconds and also leads the points classification.
"In the meantime we're enjoying this second team victory, the second team jersey here at the Tour de Pologne. It's a team victory because all my team mates raced very well to put me in the best conditions to go for a great final sprint."
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Stage 3 of the Tour de Pologne is the longest of this years race at 240km, taking the peloton from Zawiercie to Nowy Sacz
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