Tour de Pologne: Preidler wins in Bukovina Resort

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Michal Kwiatkowski (Team Sky) dug deep to retain the overall lead in the Tour de Pologne on the first of two crucial hilly stages on Thursday, with a solid defence of his lead allowing him to take third place at the Bukowina Resort finish behind stage winner Georg Preidler (Groupama-FDJ).

One of the most interesting points of the race came when Kwiatkowski kept going at his own pace after George Bennett (LottoNL-Jumbo), third overall, launched a blistering three-tempo attack in the four final kilometres, briefly gapping the Pole.

The race leader benefited massively from the late accelerations by his fellow contenders like Dylan Teuns (BMC Racing Team), swamping Bennett's move, which culminated with Preidler surfing away through the technical, undulating finish for victory a few metres ahead of the favourites.

Kwiatkowski remains in control of the overall classification for a third straight day, not to mention gaining another four seconds on time bonuses, to push his lead up to 16 seconds on Teuns.

"We've got a super strong team here, and after such an amazing last few days we were confident about what we could do," Kwiatkowski, already the winner of stage 4 and 5, said afterwards.

With three categorized ascents (a first, second and third cat.) tackled twice in the last hour of racing through the foothills of the snow-capped Tatras mountains, stage 6's short, punchy 129-kilometre route from Zakopane to Bukovina Resort was by no means straightforward.

Team Sky kept an early nine-rider breakaway under control. But as the break fizzled out, a sudden, brutal acceleration by Rohan Dennis (BMC Racing) at the front of the line in the final hour, strongly suggested that his teammate Teuns was not going to simply settle for second place, for the third day in a row.

Dennis' prolonged acceleration further shredded the peloton of some 60 riders as it tackled the final category 2 ascent of Czarna Gora, with the Australian still hammering away at the front ahead of teammates Bettiol and Teuns.

But halfway up, Kwiatkowski's cohorts moved ahead, with young Pavel Sivakov and Salvatore Puccio both riding impressively and keeping the leader's rivals under control.

Collectively, Sky barely seemed to blink when a first late attack, 12 kilometres from the line, went by Dries Devenyns (Quick-Step Floor) and quickly followed by Sam Oomen (Team Sunweb). The duo managed to open a gap on the fast, technical descent through mountain pasturelands, with Sky presumably happy to see the time bonuses soaked up by riders who were no threat on GC.

Then a triple acceleration by Bennett on the long, rugged drag up to Bukovina Resort saw the duo's effort collapse, and that forced Sky's hand a little as Kwiatkowski visibly refused to chase down the New Zealander's move.

However, rather than Sky, it was Kwiatkowski's rivals, spearheaded by Teuns, who chased Bennett down, leaving the front group down to half a dozen at most as they swung into the highly technical finale through Bukowina. A blistering move by Thibaut Pinot (Groupama-FDJ) served as a springboard for his teammate Preidler to tear away on a downhill section, and by the time Simon Yates (Mitchelton-Scott) reacted, the multiple Austrian time trial champion was well en route to his first-ever World Tour victory.

Emanuel Buchmann (Bora-Hansgrohe), moved into third ahead of Bennett (LottoNL-Jumbo), thanks to snatching second place in the tumultuous finale. But it was Kwiatkowski, ultimately, who once again came out benefiting the most.

However, for all the spectacular salvos of final attacks and counter-charges ultimately amounted to little, such aggressive, full-blooded racing bodes well for the one similarly extremely hilly stage left to go. Put simply, Kwiatkowski remains in control, but the time gaps are so small that the race is far from decided.

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