Hutarovich squeaks to win in sprint ahead of Haedo

Yauheni Hutarovich from Francaise des Jeux won stage 3 of the Tour de Pologne after besting Lucas Sebastian Haedo (Saxo Bank) and Allan Davis (Astana) in a high-speed mass sprint.

"This win is special to me since it's my first victory in a ProTour race," said Hutarovich. "The final kilometres were very fast since the road was going downhill. It was hard to spin my legs faster. It's an important victory for me and for our team and I'm really glad that I was able to beat such specialists in the sprint like Allan Davis and Borut Bozic.

"It was difficult and technical course with over 17 turns on every lap," said the 26-year old rider from Belarus. "It was raining a little bit so the roads got slightly wet and slippery."

Davis, the third place finisher, maintained his overall lead and the time bonus provided a slight cushion on general classification. The Australian leads Hutarovich by four seconds and Aitor Galdos Alonso (Euskaltel - Euskadi) by eight seconds.

Stage 3 from Sosnowiec to Katowice was dedicated to Franco Ballerini, the Italian national team coach who died tragically after an accident during a rally race. Race director Czeslaw Lang decided to honor the memory of his friend and invited Paolo Bettini, who became two-time world champion and Olympic gold medalist under Ballerini's wings, to attend.

After yesterday's stage, the longest one in this year's edition of the race at 240km, the riders had to face only 122.1km today consisting of seven 11-kilometre laps in Katowice. Shorter doesn't always mean easier, since the pace is usually much higher. That was the case today and it was very hard for the attacking riders to break clear and build up a big lead.

Simon Geschke (Skil-Shimano) and Sébastien Rosseler (RadioShack) managed to escape, but the peloton only let them gain a maximum advantage of 1:30 at the 40km mark. Team HTC-Columbia set the tempo at the head of the peloton and eventually the leading duo were reeled back in with 59km to go.

Soon after the next move was made, this time by two teammates from Team Sky: Mathew Hayman and Ian Stannard. They were quickly brought back into field, however, as the pace in the main group increased dramatically.

Later Jonas Ljungblad (Omega Pharma-Lotto), Gorka Izagirre (Euskaltel-Euskadi), Tom Stamsnijder (Rabobank) and Albert Timmer (Skil-Shimano) tried to follow the footsteps of the Sky riders, but again the power of the bunch was just too strong for any breakaway attempts.

With 24 kilometres to go Danilo Napolitano (Katusha), Dominique Rollin (Cervelo TestTeam) and Mirco Lorenzetto (Lampre-Farnese Vini) surprised everyone by attacking on the category 3 climb. When they looked over their shoulders and realized that there was a 300 metre gap they decided to give it their all.

Entering the final lap the trio were joined by the Team HTC-Columbia duo of Peter Velits and, surprisingly, André Greipel. The winner of yesterday's stage soon realised that this breakaway had no chance to succeed and sat up for the Vacansoleil-driven peloton.

With eight kilometres to the finish the remaining four escapees were caught and after attacks launched by Steve Houanard (Skil-Shimano) and Yoann Offredo (Francaise des Jeux) were neutralised the bunch started preparing for the final sprint.

In the last two kilometres Vacansoleil was doing most of the work in the front, leading out their sprinter Borut Bozic. On the slightly downhill final straight, Team Sky took over but in the end it was Yauheni Hutarovich (Francaise des Jeux) who was the fastest man in the field. It was a very close finish, however, as he won by a half-wheel length over runner-up Lucas Sebastian Haedo from Saxo Bank.

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