Teuns wins Tour de Pologne

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Dylan Teuns (BMC Racing) did just enough to hold off Rafal Majka (Bora-Hansgrohe) and take the overall victory at the Tour de Pologne, continuing a rich vein of form for the Belgian. Team Sky's Wout Poels was the day's winner the seventh and final stage of the Tour de Pologne, besting Adam Yates (Orica-Scott) and Majka in a sprint among GC favourites at Bukowina Tatrzanska.

The mountainous race finale spurred plenty of attacks, with Peter Sagan (Bora-Hansgrohe) getting into the early break and a flurry of late escape attempts after the race came back together, but no one managed to pull away for good in the final kilometres of the uncategorised finishing climb.

Poels proved fastest in the uphill kick, while race leader Teuns arrived fifth to seal his overall victory, albeit narrowly – Majka's four-second bonus for finishing third left him as overall runner-up by just two seconds. Poels rounded out the overall podium in third.

How it unfolded

An aggressive Sagan tried and tried again to get away in the early goings of the extremely lumpy 132-kilometre race finale, and managed to forge clear around 15 kilometres into the day just after the first categorised climb.

A sizable contingent of fellow escapees joined him. Comprising 13 riders, the main breakaway of the day consisted of Sagan, Petr Vakoc (Quick-Step Floors), Robert Power, Rubén Plaza and Rory Sutherland (Orica-Scott), Dayer Quintana (Movistar), Diego Rosa (Sky), Simon Spilak (Katusha-Alpecin), Daan Olivier (Team LottoNL-Jumbo), Tom-Jelte Slagter (Cannondale-Drapac), Domen Novak (Bahrain-Merida), Niko Denz (AG2R La Mondiale) and Paweł Cieslik (Poland).

The break worked their advantage up over two and a half minutes going up and over the new few climbs, with UAE Team Emirates and BMC Racing doing much of the work in the pack. The tough parcours saw the peloton thin out gradually over the course of the stage, while the break lost Denz 45 kilometres into the action but stayed mostly together for the next hour.

With around 45 kilometres to go, the peloton began to show interest in bringing the break to heel. The gap was down to a minute with 35 kilometres to go, which may have been the motivation for Sagan to make his move. The world road champ launched an attack out of the break with only Plaza getting into his wheel, and the pair quickly put some breathing room between themselves and the other escapees.

Rosa set off in solo pursuit as the pack closed in on the rest of the break. Sagan dropped Plaza, and Rosa pulled past the Spaniard in short order, but he still had a half a minute gap to make up on the lone rider off the front as they began the day's final categorised climb. The gap between the two stayed more or less the same going up and over the ascent. Back in the peloton, however, Majka opened hostilities with a blistering attack as the summit neared. Poels was live to the danger however, keeping the Bora rider in check.

Then it was Poels' turn to attack. The Dutchman jumped away on the first uncategorised bump after the final categorised ascent, bringing Orica-Scott's Jack Haig with him and bridging to Rosa, with Sagan only a short ways off.

Teuns was distanced as Majka pushed ahead in pursuit. Rosa, Poels and Haig then caught up Sagan, but the world champ eased off the throttle to wait for Majka, helping his Bora teammate get back into the mix, with a few others getting back on terms at the head of the race as well.

Minutes later, Teuns rejoined his rivals at the front, helped back into the mix by teammate Tejay van Garderen.

Sagan fired off another attack with five kilometres to go on the run-in to the uncategorised finishing climb. He started the ascent with an advantage of a few seconds, but then came the attacks from behind. Sagan was caught as the likes of Sam Oomen (Sunweb), Domenico Pozzovivo (AG2R La Mondiale) and Haig all put in digs, though none of them managed to distance their rivals.

Majka attacked with 2.2 kilometres left and only Teuns and Poels could follow. The trio initially opened up a gap, but there was neither impetus to cooperate nor any one rider able to leave the others behind, leading to a regrouping for the final push.

Yates jumped first out of the lead group rounding towards the finish, but it was Poels who led the way across the line with Yates just behind and Majka settling for third. Teuns avoided any splits at the finish line to finish on even terms with the rest and so seal the overall win.

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