Kittel romps to victory in Warsaw

Marcel Kittel (Skil-Shimano) overpowered Alexander Kristoff (BMC) and Francesco Chicchi (Quick Step) in a bunch finish in Warsaw to take the opening stage of the Tour de Pologne.

With a number of motivated sprinters in the field and no single dominant sprint train, it was always likely to be a chaotic finale, but Kittel stamped his authority on proceedings by unleashing a ferocious sprint from the centre of the road with over 300 metres to go.

While Kittel enjoyed a whole-hearted lead-out from teammate Tom Veelers, he admitted afterwards that he launched his effort a little too early on the long and exposed finishing straight. Yet the German neo-professional showed no signs of weakness as he powered a length clear of his rivals and the result was never in doubt from the moment he started his effort.

Indeed, such was Kittel’s dominance, he even had time to sit up and savour his victory as he crossed the line, while Kristoff held off Chicchi and Heinrich Haussler (Garmin-Cervélo) to finish a distant third.

“It was a hard sprint with such a straight finish,” Kittel said afterwards. “I have to say a big thank you to the whole team. Tom Veelers did a perfect lead-out even if he launched me perhaps a bit early. But I still controlled the situation.”

The win was Kittel’s ninth of the season and his first in a WorldTour event. Given the relative ease of his victory in Warsaw, the 23-year-old has every reason to be hopeful of repeating the feat later in the race.

“If there's another sprint I hope I can win again,” he said. “But for GC my team will count on Johannes Fröhlinger or Thierry Hupond."

Second-placed Alexander Kristoff admitted that he could do nothing to stop Kittel’s march to victory. “I was perfectly positioned, but my legs were not 100 percent at the end so I didn't make it around Kittel,” Kristoff said. “But this is a good start."

A stage for the sprinters

With a flat run from Pruskow to Warsaw preceding eight laps of an 8.1km circuit in the Polish capital, the short opening stage of the Tour de Pologne was always likely to reward the sprinters.

Nonetheless, Arkimedes Argueles (Katusha), Pierre Cazaux (Euskaltel-Euskadi), Carlos Oyarzun (Movistar), Fabio Piscopiello (De Rosa-Ceramica Flaminia), Bartolmiej Matysiak (CCC Polsat – Polkowice) and Adrian Kurek (Poland) slipped up the road early on, and the sextet put up fierce resistance against the sprinters’ teams behind.

Although their advantage never stretched beyond three minutes, they succeeded in staying off the front of the race until the closing stages of the race. In a frantic finale on the Warsaw circuit, it took the combined efforts of HTC-Highroad and Liquigas-Cannondale to peg them back.

Such was the pace on the final lap of the circuit that nobody was able to get any purchase on an attack, and it all came down to a mass finish. While Liquigas’ efforts suggested that Peter Sagan would be the man to watch, the Slovak failed to make an impact in the sprint.

Instead, it was the muscular figure of Marcel Kittel who emerged from the tumult to take a commanding victory and the first yellow jersey of the race.