Olav Kooij (Jumbo-Visma) took a crushing bunch sprint victory in stage 4 of the Tour de Pologne.
Second on stage 1, Kooij was perfectly positioned behind a Groupama-FDJ rider after the peloton negotiated a right-hand bend with 500 metres to go.
The young Dutchman then easily soared past to claim the second Tour de Pologne victory of his career, several bike lengths ahead of Marijn Van Den Berg (EF Education-EasyPost) and Matteo Moschetti (Q36.5).
After the 199-kilometre flat stage from Strzelin to Opole, Matej Mohorič (Bahrain Victorious) remained in the overall lead for a third successive day.
Prolifically successful with 22 wins to his name even though he is only in his second full year as a professional, Kooij, 22, said, “There’s never really one recipe to do every sprint, you always need to look at the finale, make a good plan and that’s what we did today.
“I tried to be in a good position when we went through that last corner and I thought maybe I was a bit too much to the front when I went through second. But when I went for it, I felt good and was able to do a good sprint for the win today.
“I’ll try for another win tomorrow [Wednesday] and then head to the Worlds.”
How it unfolded
As heavy rain showers fell on Pologne for the fourth successive day, five riders took off early. Jacopo Mosca (Lidl-Trek) was in the move for the third straight stage in Pologne, although after picking up some more points for his KOM lead on the one classified climb of the day, the category 3 Strezegomiany at km 36.2, the Italian dropped back to the main bunch.
Sebastian Schönberger (Human Powered Health), Yevgeniy Gidich (Astana Qazaqstan) and Poland National team duo Norbert Banaszek and Patrick Stosz, the latter the leader of the most combative rider competition, all powered on regardless, opening up a gap of around four minutes on the bunch.
Meanwhile behind the leaders, there was a brief but intense attempt by Ineos Grenadiers, sparked by GC contender Michal Kwiatkowski, and UAE Team Emirates to form echelons. Despite the strong winds on the exposed roads of southern Poland, the bunch reformed quickly when it became clear that none of the teams’ main rivals had been caught out.
At that point, the peloton settled back into a default controlling position for the rest of the day. Jumbo-Visma, working for Kooij, and Arkéa-Samsic were the main parties involved in keeping the pace high.
By 70 kilometres to go the French and Dutch squads' combined effort had proved enough to squeeze the leaders’ margin to well under two minutes.
On the long, flat roads into Opole, Jayco AlUla and Ineos Grenadiers added more weight to the chase, at which point Gidich flung in the towel, bringing the move down to three for the final hour of racing.
With 26 kilometres from the line, the trio were finally brought back, although Stosz paid homage to his jersey by trying to stay away for another 500 metres.
The peloton powered on at a deceptively-fast pace for another 15 kilometres, clearly setting things up for a sprint but in no mood to end an undeclared ceasefire. As they reached the outskirts of Opole, Jayco-AIUIa, Ineos Grenadiers, Bora-Hansgrohe and Human Powered Health collectively began to accelerate hard, touching speeds of over 60 kph.
No team managed to control the bunch in the last few kilometres, much of it running on an A’ road next to the River Oder, even if the Ineos line was pushing hard on the left and Jumbo-Visma once again made their presence felt in the centre. Alpecin-Deceuninck then stepped up the pace with two kilometres to go, a string of their riders storming over a railway bridge at the front of the bunch. B
ut then after a Groupama-FDJ rider took a flying start around the final corner for the sprint, Kooij was perfectly positioned behind him and ready to pounce for his seventh victory of this season.
Stage 5 sees Pologne return to much more rugged terrain, with more than 3,000 metres of vertical climbing featuring on a trek through the mountains of southern Poland. However, the 50 kilometres between the final category 1 climb and the grinding uphill finish in Bielsko-Biala, which has featured regularly in past editions of Pologne, could well see a sizable peloton regroup.
“There are four or five climbs before we hit the finishing circuit, which are harder than the years I did this circuit before. It was like a bunch sprint before when we’ve done this finish, but this time there’ll be more of a selection,” predicted Mohorič.
“We’ll try and win the stage, it’ll be very hard but this is our goal, because if we don’t, it’ll be hard to keep my advantage on GC in Thursday’s time trial.”
Results
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