Kruopis captures stage 4 in Katowice

Aidis Kruopis (Orica GreenEdge Cycling Team) sprinted to victory in stage 4 of the Tour of Poland, at 127.8km the shortest outing of the seven-day stage race. Following the 25-year-old Lithuanian across the finish line were stage 2 winner Ben Swift (Sky) in second and Theo Bos (Rabobank) in third place.

Kruopis parlayed his team's lead-out into his second victory of the season, but the first of his career in a WorldTour event.

"This is a special victory for me and the team," said Kruopis. "Orica-GreenEdge has shown their faith in me, and it's the first opportunity I've had to win in Poland. I'm happy to show the team what I could do.

"Mitch [Docker] kept the pace high and Leigh [Howard] led me to 800 meters. I went around the last corner behind the Sky train. I was just behind Swift, and he had two teammates in front of him. They pulled until he opened his sprint. At 100 meters, I started sprinting. I passed Swift, and I won.

"I had some problems in the middle part of the season," admitted Kruopis. "I spent 10 days in Slovenia riding in the mountains to get in the best shape I could for the Tour of Poland. I wanted to improve myself and show the team that I could do something here."

While nearly the entire peloton finished in the same time as Kruopis in the bunch gallop, the leader's jersey changed hands as Poland's Michal Kwiatkowski (Omega Pharma-QuickStep) won the first intermediate sprint 27.9km into the stage and earned a three-second time bonus. Kwiatkowski started the stage second overall on general classification, one second shy of race leader Moreno Moser (Liquigas-Cannondale), but now leads his home Tour by two seconds over the young Italian with three stages remaining.

"I'm over the moon," Kwiatkowski said."The public sang 'Happy Birthday' to me, even though my birthday was June 2nd. My family and my girlfriend were also at the race. It was amazing! It's one of the most important moments of my career. It was an emotional moment when I wore the yellow jersey in front of the public of my country. I always dreamt about it.

"Tomorrow, and the day after tomorrow, will be a fight on the mountains, but we are ready. The team is strong and I feel good. I will try until the end to defend this jersey."

Stage 4 began with two local circuit laps in the start town of Bedzin and then proceeded to Katowice where the peloton faced a finishing circuit, an 8.1km loop to be completed six times. A four-man break comprised of Adrian Kurek (Utensilnord Named), Angel Madrazo (Movistar), Rafael Andriato (Farnese Vini-Selle Italia) and Martin Verschoor (Team Type 1-Sanofi) enjoyed a stint of freedom, but the teams of the sprinters would not be denied a chance to win the stage. The escapees built up a three-minute advantage, but the hard-charging peloton neutralised the attack on the final finishing circuit to set up the field sprint finale.