Bodnar takes time trial win

Former Polish time trial champion, Lukas Bodnar (CCC Polsat Polkowice) blew away the competition in the stage three in Polkowice at Szlakiem Grodow Piastowskich. He bested his teammate Tomasz Kiendys by 22 seconds and Michal Kwiatkowski (Polish National Team) by an additional 15 seconds.

"I’m really happy that I won the stage," said Bodnar afterwards. "This victory would be even more precious if I hadn’t lost so much time in the queen stage on Saturday."

Alexander Gufler (PCT Vorarlberg), who was the second to start the time trial, put in an early best time. For over an hour nobody was able to crack the leading results until the Italian was beaten by Wojciech Ziolkowski (DHL Author). He covered the 26.7-kilometre course in 34:29.

Lukasz Bodnar (CCC Polsat Polkowice) arrived at the finish 5 minutes later, blasting the DHL Author’s rider time by an huge one minute and 6 seconds. Later riders brought in good times, but no one was able to come close. Bodnar’s teammate Tomasz Kiendys, finished 22 seconds down in second place. The former junior world time trial champion, Michal Kwiatkowski (Polish National Team) placed third, 37 seconds behind Bodnar.

The top three GC contenders were battling not only for the win in the time trial, but also for the win in the general classification. Bartosz Huzarski (Polish National Track Team) finished fourth but it was not good enough to drop Marek Rutkiewicz (Mróz Active Jet) out of the overall lead. Tomasz Marczyński (CCC Polsat Polkowice) was not at his best and finished seventh, losing 54 seconds to the winner.

Rutkiewicz maintained the gold jersey and he has 15 second advantage over Huzarski and 20 over Marczyński going into the final flat stage from Rudna to Legnica.