Tour de Pologne: Sagan sprints to stage 1 victory

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Peter Sagan (Bora-Hansgrohe) took a powerful win in a fast and furious opening stage of the Tour of Pologne, on his first competitive outing since his exclusion from the 2017 Tour de France.

Sagan's bunch sprint victory, his eight win of the season, came at the end of a short opening stage, starting off a lumpy initial 100 kilometres but then clearly coming down to a four—kilometre city centre circuit in Krakow that favoured the fastmen.

Second across the line was Caleb Ewan (Orica-Scott), also making his return to WorldTour racing following his stage win in the Giro d'Italia, while Danny van Poppel (Team Sky) came home in third.

Sagan has said repeatedly during the build-up to the Tour de Pologne that the events of the Tour de France are forgotten and he is now moving forward. But for those out there with a lingering feeling that the Slovak had a point to prove following his disqualification, the world champion demonstrated that he knows how to bounce back in style.

Sagan seemed more than happy with his win, too, which was greeted with massive cheers and chants of his name from the sizeable Saturday afternoon crowd in Krakow. His wife, Katerina, was present at the line to congratulate him.

"It's very nice to be here, and get a lot of support and energy from the people here. Slovakia is close by. The Slovakian and Polish fans have been amazing," Sagan said afterwards. "I felt a lot of positive energy in the race."

The 130 kilometre stage, run off in warm weather, had a distinctly patriotic feel to it, starting and finishing in Poland's former capital, Krakow. There were also two local names, Maciej Paterski (CCC-Sprandi) and Pawel Bernas (Poland), among the four-man early break, which also included Martijn Keizer (LottoNL-Jumbo) and Charles Planet (Novo Nordisk).

A former King of the Mountains in the Tour de Pologne, Paterski's best-known international claim to fame came when he won the opening stage of the Volta a Catalunya in 2015 from a massively long break. This time, on home soil, the 30-year-old could not stay away beyond 14 kilometres from the line, but every time his orange clad figure appeared on television, he still drew some big cheers and chants from the local crowd before the Orica-Scott, Bora-Hansgrohe and Team Sunweb squad pulled in the breakaway.

There were some gutsy late moves despite the extreme flatness of the 4 kilometre finishing circuit, tackled three times and with its only climb over a railway bridge. Daniel Oss (BMC) and Tomasz Marcynski (Lotto Soudal) tried to jump clear on the last lap, and Davide Martinelli (Quick Step Floors) made a cleverly timed move in the final kilometre, on a flat, broad boulevard they had already covered twice before, but the sprinters' teams were able to bring their acceleration for the sprint to the boil in perfect time.

The only potential hitch for the sprint arose with a nasty crash in the middle of the peloton some 400 metres from the line. Amongst those affected was Kristian Sbaragli (Team Dimension Data) who both lost his chance of going for the sprint and gained a nasty looking gash in his right buttock as he hit the ground at speed.

Sagan, on the other hand, was in the front part of the bunch that missed the crash completely. Indeed, he later looked surprised when informed of the crash. Making his move early and with no room for his rivals to react, Sagan powered away out on the left-hand side of the road and won comfortably ahead of Ewan.

The win puts Sagan into the yellow jersey of race leader. With another bunch sprint in the offing in Katowice on Sunday, there is every chance he will keep it.

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