Former French national champion Paul Lapeira (Decathlon-AG2R) won stage 2 of the Tour de Pologne and took the race leader's yellow jersey with a perfectly-timed late surge on the uphill finish above Karpacz.
Lapeira let his rivals attack, waited a moment and then accelerated with 150 metres to go, opening a gap of several bike lengths that was enough to give him time to celebrate on the line.
Mathias Vacek (Lidl-Trek) was second and Victor Langellotti (Ineos Grenadiers) was third.
Michał Kwiatkowski (Ineos Grenadiers) led the shake-out of riders in the final two kilometres, riding for the USA's Magnus Sheffield, until four hundred metres to go.
Jan Christen (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) attacked first, was followed by Finn Fisher-Black (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe) but both faded as Lapeira made his winning move.
Lapeira now leads Vacek by six seconds thanks to the time bonuses.
How it unfolded
Max Walker leads the day's breakaway (Image credit: Getty Images)
The second stage around Karpacz was short at 149.4km but included four categorised climbs, 2200 metres of altitude gain and a gradual, fast-road climb to the finish.
Four riders jumped away immediately at kilometre zero to form the early breakaway of the day. They include Max Walker (EF Education-EasyPost), Patrick Gamper (Jayco-AlUla) and Tomasz Budziński and Patryk Stosz from the Polish national team.
The peloton gave them some freedom, and they opened a 3:00 lead with 90km to race. The riders shared the intermediate sprint and mountain prizes as they worked together and fought for the different jerseys.
UAE Team Emirates-XRG, Bahrain Victorious and Tudor Pro Cycling worked together to keep the quartet under control. Olav Kooij wore the race leader's yellow jersey, but Visma-Lease a Bike avoided working too hard, with Britain's Matthew Brenann the team's protected rider for the finish.
A narrowing in the road sparked a crash that saw Bob Jungels (Ineos Grenadiers), Bauke Mollema (Lidl-Trek) and Juan Guillermo Martinez (Picnic-PostNL) go down. Fortunately, none of them was injured.
Budziński won the KOM points atop the Przełęcz Średnica climb after 110km to take the virtual lead in the competition. Then Walker did the same on the second passage after attacking alone with 22km to go.
The British rider pushed on alone, going into an aero position for the fast road towards the finish. He appeared to have a lead of a minute as the other breakaways were caught, but the peloton soon closed him down on the gradual climb to the finish.
Max Walker solo on stage 2 (Image credit: Getty Images)
The catch came with five kilometres to go as the big teams fought for position before the fast climb to the line. Matthew Brennan (Visma-Lease a Bike) was expected to be a contender, but Kwiatkowski's hard work shook out the peloton, dropped Brennan and left just 30 or so riders up front.
Christen surged away when Sheffield stuttered, but it was too early on the leg-hurting climb to the line. Lapeira made his move later and was able to use a deep anaerobic effort to open a gap and win with his arms in the air.
Stephen is one of the most experienced member of the Cyclingnews team, having reported on professional cycling since 1994. He has been Head of News at Cyclingnews since 2022, before which he held the position of European editor since 2012 and previously worked for Reuters, Shift Active Media, and CyclingWeekly, among other publications.
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