Thibau Nys (Lidl-Trek) completed a hat-trick at the Tour de Pologne when he sprinted to victory on the uphill finale to stage 6 at Bukovina Resort. The Belgian delivered another well-timed effort from a severely reduced group to claim his third win of the week ahead of Diego Ulissi (UAE Team Emirates) and Oscar Onley (DSM-Firmenich-PostNL).
Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease a Bike) always looked comfortable on the rugged finale, and he came home fourth on the stage to retain the yellow jersey. The Dane carries a lead of 13 seconds over Ulissi into Sunday’s final leg to Krakow.
The most demanding stage of the Tour de Pologne was animated by a fine solo effort from neo-professional Archie Ryan (EF Education-EasyPost), who has impressed every time the road has climbed across the week.
Ryan joined Tim Wellens (UAE Team Emirates), Mick van Dijke (Visma-Lease a Bike) and Tobias Foss (Ineos) in bridging up to earlier escapees Samuele Battistella (Astana-Qazaqstan), Davide Formolo (Movistar) and Silvan Dillier (Alpecin-Deceuninck) on the first ascent of Ściana Bukowina with 70km remaining.
With Van Dijke there to police affairs for Vingegaard, Visma-Lease a Bike were content to leave much of the pace-making in the peloton to others, with DSM increasingly prominent as the day drew on.
The front group began to splinter on the second ascent of Ściana Bukowina, by which point the bunch had closed almost within half a minute of the escapees. Wellens attacked forcefully with 17km remaining, but Ryan responded with interest, forging clear ahead of the steepest section of the climb.
Ryan proceeded to dance on the pedals all the way up the ‘wall’ of Bukowina, where he succeeded in maintaining a buffer of half a minute on the chasers, and he still had 25 seconds in hand when he crested the summit with 12km remaining.
Over the other side, Bahrain Victorious were active in pursuing Ryan, but the Wicklow native still had 11 seconds in hand when he hit the unclassified final climb to the finish. His brave effort was only snuffed out with 2.5km remaining, when Romain Bardet dragged a very reduced yellow jersey group up to Ryan on behalf of Onley.
In the final 2km, Vingegaard found himself on the front, though the Dane was in defensive mode here, and he was content to allow Yanis Voissard (Tudor) take a flyer with 1.6km remaining. The Swiss carried a slender lead into the final kilometre, but he was reeled in by the chasing of Rafal Majka on behalf of Ulissi.
Majka led deep into the final kilometre before Ben Hermans (Cofidis) tried his luck from distance in the uphill sprint. Once he faded, Wilco Kelderman (Visma-Lease a Bike) hit front the front, but the Dutchman was quickly passed by Ulissi, always so expert in finales such as this.
Ulissi, however, has met his match on hilltop finales in Poland this week. Nys, who had seemed to be suffering lower down the climb, made his way to the front at just the right moment, and the Belgian’s finishing kick brooked no argument as he collected his ninth victory of a sparkling campaign.
Ulissi took second ahead of Onley and Vingegaard, while Kelderman held on for fifth place in the 25-strong front group.
Vingegaard is now on the cusp of overall victory with just Sunday’s flat run to Krakow to come. The two-time Tour de France winner leads Ulissi by 13 seconds while Kelderman lies third at 20 seconds.
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