Tour de Pologne: Gaviria takes first win of 2021 on stage 3

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Fernando Gaviria (UAE Team Emirates) claimed his first victory of the 2021 season, winning a close sprint on stage 3 of the Tour de Pologne in Rzeszów. The Colombian beat Jumbo-Visma's Olav Kooij with a bike throw, with stage 1 winner Phil Bauhaus (Bahrain Victorious) taking third.

The Colombian sprinter timed his effort well in the final stretch and managed to snatch the victory from Kooij, who opened up the dash for the line. The young Dutchman took advantage of good positioning work and led the charge but ran out of power in the last 20 metres. Gaviria was coming in a close second and had just enough to prevail.

"It was a really nice stage for us and a really nice victory. I tried to take the victory this year a lot of times and I am glad it arrived today", Gaviria told TVP Sport at the finish line, remembering his previous win in Rzeszów in 2016. "In the morning we spoke with the sports directors about the tactics for the stage. All the team trusted me for today. We did the maximum to arrive in the bunch, we put a lot of riders to work. The team then put me in the best position for the sprint."

João Almeida (Deceuninck-Quick-Step) maintained his lead in the general classification. The Portuguese rider won stage 2 in Przemyśl and still holds a slim gap of 4 seconds over Matej Mohoric (Bahrain Victorious) and Diego Ulissi (UAE Team Emirates).

"It was a long stage, over 5 hours. We controlled the break. There was a guy around 2 minutes down in the GC [Conca], so we couldn't give them a lot of time. We did our work, we still tried with Alvaro in the sprint. It wasn't his day but for sure it's coming as well," Almeida said in a post-stage interview.

How it unfolded

226 kilometres between Sanok and Rzeszów made for the longest day of racing at Tour of Poland. While the hilly first part of the route might have tempted many breakaway specialists, the chances of outplaying the bunch on an undulating run-in to the capital of Subcarpathian Voivodeship remained small.

The first half of the stage led through a series of uncategorised ascents, only to reignite the competition in the mountains classification after 75 kilometres. Riders tackled three short climbs – Hotel Arłamów, Gruszowa, and Kalwaria Pacławska – repeating the efforts of stage 2 on the last two of them. These steep and narrow ascents stretched the bunch before the uphill finish in Przemyśl, but they were unlikely to do so again, this time appearing with 116 kilometres to go. Only two uncategorised climbs followed and so the sprinters had more than enough room to regroup in the final 56 kilometres.

There were plenty of riders interested in showing their team's colours in the breakaway and eight of them managed to break clear 30 kilometres into the stage. Łukasz Owsian (Polish National Team), Lionel Taminiaux (Alpecin-Fenix), Taco van der Hoorn (Intermarché-Wanty-Gobert Matériaux), Alexander Konyshev (Team BikeExchange), Filippo Conca (Lotto Soudal), Norman Vahtra (Israel Start-Up Nation), Tom Bohli (Cofidis) and Simon Clarke (Team Qhubeka NextHash) got little over a minute on the bunch and were soon joined by Daniel Arroyave (EF Education-Nippo) and Niklas Märkl (Team DSM).

Van der Hoorn led the group through the first intermediate sprint in Ustrzyki Dolne (48km), at which point the peloton allowed the gap to grow to 3 minutes. Deceuninck-Quickstep riders started setting a steady pace, keeping Almeida out of trouble and hoping to get through the day without having to frantically chase down a strong group.

At the front Owsian was keen to take over the mountains classification lead. Riding in national colours, the Arkea-Samsic rider took points atop Hotel Arłamów (80 km), Gruszowa (94 km), and Kalwaria Pacławska (111 km), three times crossing the line in front of Arroyave.

With 85 kilometres remaining Deceuninck-Quick-Step seemed to have the race under control. The gap quickly dropped from 2:30 to 1:10 at one point, but the breakaway was far from done and kept working together to extend their lead. In the group of ten, only Märkl refused to take the turns.

Van der Hoorn rolled through the second intermediate sprint unchallenged as the gap jumped to 3:10. With 45 kilometres to go Bahrain Victorious and UAE Team Emirates sensed the danger and sent their riders to help out the chase. Stretched in a long line on the undulating roads the peloton began slowly closing on the leaders, who meanwhile dedicated some time to persuading Märkl to contribute.

Cooperation among the escapees soon collapsed and as Vahtra won the final intermediate sprint in Łańcut, the bunch was only 50 seconds in the rears. Bohli blew up by then, the rest started looking around but Van der Hoorn still had something left for the final 30 kilometres and wasn't going to go down without a fight. The Dutchman kept attacking until breaking clear with 23 kilometres to go. Taminiaux, Clarke, and Owsian soon followed and their gap stabilised at 40 seconds.

Van der Hoorn soon went again, taking Clarke and Taminiaux with him in the last-ditch effort. It was enough to animate things and force the sprinters' teams to send more riders to the front. UAE Team Emirates and Deceuninck-Quick-Step quickly reeled in the remains of the breakaway but only managed to stop the leading trio with 3 kilometres to go.

A drag race between lead-out trains followed. Matej Mohoric, seemingly still not tired by efforts of the previous stage or previous weeks, rode for Phil Bauhaus. The German hesitated for a moment and tried to catch the wheel of two Jumbo-Visma riders as they navigated a right bend into the final 200 meters. Kooij opened up the sprint in the perfect position, with Gaviria following. The Colombian was coming back and with the sprint that close, he could only celebrate after crossing the line.