Tour de Pologne: Bauhaus wins opening stage

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Phil Bauhaus (Bahrain Victorious) stole away with the stage 1 victory at the Tour de Pologne. In a well-timed sprint, the German rider patiently gauged his effort to catch and pass early sprinter Álvaro Hodeg (Deceuninck-QuickStep) on the cobbled finish line while Hugo Hofstetter (Israel Start-Up Nation) finished third in Chelm.

Bauhaus and his team watched as Deceuninck-QuickStep set the pace into the final and then as Hodeg launched his searing attack on the cobbled, five per cent uphill finish with 300 metres to go. It was an early move but Bauhaus bided his time and wound up a more controlled sprint effort, closing the gap to Hodeg before narrowly taking the stage victory.

Bauhaus enjoys a four-second lead in the overall classification over Hodeg, while breakaway rider Yevgeniy Fedorov (Astana-Premier Tech) sits in third place at four seconds and Hofstetter sits six seconds in arrears as the race heads into stage 2’s 200km race from Zamosc to Przemysl on Tuesday.

Organisers have worked to improve the safety of their race after last year’s horrific high-speed crash involving Fabio Jakobsen (Deceuninck-QuickStep), who was knocked into inadequate finish line barriers by Dylan Grownewegen (Jumbo-Visma) during a downhill sprint in Katowice and suffered serious head injuries.

They have installed Boplan plastic barriers which help absorb the impact of crashes and better protect riders from the dangers of road furniture, while also removing the unnecessarily dangerous high-speed downhill finish as in Katowice.

How it unfolded

The seven-day race kicked off with a 216km route between Lubin and Chelm. It offered three intermediate sprints at Batorz (44.5km), Godziszow (73km), and Krasnystaw (176km). The route also presented opportunities for mountain classification points over short, punchy climbs Blazek (49km), Antolin (64km), Hosznia Abramowska (105km), all averaging 5 per cent and ranging between 500 metres and 1.5 kilometres. 

The second half of the route was relatively flat until the final in Chelm that included two circuits with an 800-metre-long section of cobbles located on the shallow-grade climb to the finish line.

An early breakaway cleared the field with Yevgeniy Fedorov (Astana-Premier Tech), Sean Bennett (Qhubeka NextHash) and Michal Paluta (Global 6 Cycling) gaining more than six minutes in the first 20km of the stage.

Paluta sprinted over the first KOM in Blazek to take full points while Fedorov took the full points offered at the first two intermediate sprints in Batorz and Godziszow, along with the mountain points at the second KOM in Antolin.

Paluta, again, secured the full mountain points over third and final ascent of Hosznia Abramowska that put him into the lead of the mountain classification with a total of eight points. He also took the sprint for time bonuses in Chlopkow at the 118km mark.

The time gap gradually dropped as the race progressed, to a more manageable two minutes largely due to the efforts UAE Team Emirates, Deceuninck-QuickStep and Bahrain Victorious, but once the gap had been partially closed, the teams eased slightly to allow the trio to dangle just ahead.

The gap was slashed in half with 50km to go and new attacks sprang out of the main field as riders sensed a fresh opportunity for a stage win. The three original escapees folded back into the mix as a group of six riders emerged. It was a short-lived effort and the race was all back together inside 45km from the finish. The field fanned out wide across the roads but the onslaught of attacks seemed inevitable as the race pressed on toward the final series of sharp climbs toward Chelm.

A late-race crash saw Aexis Renard (Israel Start-up Nation) needing support to get back in the race while Bora-Hansgrohe sprinter Pascal Ackermann, separately, abandoned the race. Michal Kwiatkowski (Ineos Grenadiers) was the first over the line at the third and final intermediate sprint in Krasnystaw, with Matej Mohoric (Bahrain Victorious) and Emils Liepins (Trek-Segafredo) close behind.

That set off a flurry of new attacks inside 35km that resulted in another three-rider breakaway with Jos van Emden (Team Jumbo-Visma), Tom Scully (EF Education-Nippo), Antoine Duchesne (Groupama-FDJ) quickly padding out a 40-second margin.

Behind the trio, Bahrain Victorious, Deceuninck-QuickStep and UAE Team Emirates continued to set a pace just fast enough to keep them at a manageable distance before pulling them back in with 14km to go.

Lotto Soudal, Trek-Segafredo, Ineos Grenadiers moved forward prepared for an organised leadout as they hit the finishing circuit. Ineos were the first to lead the field over the cobbled section toward the circuit’s finish line, for the first time, when several rider jumped ahead. They weren’t successful in holding a gap and the field were back together inside 5km. Barnabás Peák (Team BikeExchange) made a last-ditch acceleration but he too wasn’t strong enough to clear the field.

Deceuninck-QuickStep’s Remi Cavagna led the field through the twist and turns along the city streets and onto the cobbles with 800 metres to go, followed by his teammates.

Mohoric was the first to jump at 400m to go but his efforts didn’t stick and Hodeg was the next to start his sprint at 300 metres, clearing the field. It was an effort made too soon, and as he began to fade, Bauhaus had already covered the distance and had just enough left to surge around the Colombian to take the stage win.