Rafal Majka (UAE Team Emirates) won stage 3 of the Tour de Pologne on a viciously-steep uphill finish ahead of race leader Matej Mohoric (Bahrain Victorious) in a small group sprint.
As the gradient steepened to 18% on the narrow, twisting ascent to Duszniki-Zdrój, Majka led a strung-out reduced peloton.
In the final dash for the line, the former Tour de Pologne winner outsprinted Mohoric by less than a bike length, with Michal Kwiatkowski (Ineos Grenadiers) claiming third.
Mohoric therefore remains leader for a second straight day of racing through rugged hill country in south-west Pologne, with Thursday’s time trial the next key day in the overall battle.
While the battle for overall remains tightly packed with more than 20 riders still at less than a minute on Mohoric, Majka was logically delighted with taking a victory on home soil. Stage 3 of Pologne is his first WorldTour win since a stage of the Vuelta a España in 2021, and moving up to second overall as well.
“I’m so happy because I had one chance to win,” said Majka, who staged a late attack on stage 2 to Karpacz’ summit finish on Sunday but was reeled in.
“We’re doing the overall with João [Almeida] so it’s really nice to get this win. I’m riding for all the fans in Poland and also for my family, because I’ve been away from home since May 10th. I didn’t know this climb, but it’s hard and when it’s hard it’s better for me.”
Majka rubbished the idea in some quarters that he might have moved his line in the final sprint and potentially blocked Mohoric and the race commissaires also ruled that the result stood and there had been no irregular manoeuvres.
“There was a lot of space at the top of the climb and I just did my sprint,” he told local reporters.
How it unfolded
Results
On a day with 3,200 metres of vertical climbing, an initial attack by Andreas Kron (Lotto-Dstny) went nowhere, but his second, given extra momentum when Jacopo Mosca (Lidl-Trek) came across, succeeded in getting clear.
Mosca was visibly keen to test his luck with a long-range move for the second day running, then when Mick van Dijke (Jumbo-Visma) and Bastien Tronchon (AG2R-Citroën) came across, that doubled the number of early challengers off the front to four.
Piotr Brozyna (Poland) tried and failed to break out of the peloton and provide the move with some additional local support, but the leading quartet nonetheless worked well together and moved into the flatter middle section of the stage with an advantage of four minutes.
None of them constituted an overall threat, but race leader Mohoric’s declaration of interest in adding a second stage win in 24 hours encouraged Bahrain Victorious to keep their lead.
The four saw their lead shrink to two minutes with 40 kilometres to go, and then on the lower slopes of the last category 2 climb, the Zieleniec, an increased tempo from UAE saw the move’s advantage crumble. A third of the way up, Kron was the last rider to be reeled in and UAE’s pace was such that the peloton rapidly halved in size.
Sitting about eighth back on the Zieleniec, Mohoric did not appear to be in any kind of trouble on the lower slopes. After an undulating final few kilometres on the climb, when the peloton, led by Mohoric’s teammate Damiano Caruso crested the summit it was still 50 strong, with Bahrain still represented in significant numbers.
A fast and fortunately dry descent through the numerous woods in the region then followed, as UAE headed the pack down to the final, short and brutally steep climb to Duszniki-Zdroj.
UAE still kept control on a brief segment of flat, but Ineos, with former Pologne winner Pavel Sivakov and Geraint Thomas to the fore, were quicker onto Duszniki-Zdrój’s lower, uneven slopes of around 10%.
Thomas led under the final kilometre but then when he swung off Caruso moved to the fore again. However, Majka proved to be more than able to punch past into a leading position and as the road ramped up briefly to 16% and then 18% on a course which was two bike-widths at most, nobody was able to come past him.
The road flattened out briefly in the last few metres, and the route was broad enough for Mohoric and Kwiatkowski, the two riders who’d shadowed Majka the closest, to dispute the sprint. But the trio barely had time to accelerate before reaching the finish line and Majka, albeit by the narrowest of margins, was able to stay ahead.
After two hilly stages, the GC remained on a knife edge, albeit with Mohoric, Kwiatkowski and Almeida as the top three favourites.
Stage 4 from Strzelin to Opole is 199 kilometres long and should end in a bunch sprint, although the hilly stage 5 and the grinding uphill finish to Bielsko-Biala could yet see the GC candidates come to the fore. Stage 6’s time trial in Katowice, though, will likely be the crunch factor in who finally comes out on top of the GC battle in the 2023 Tour de Pologne.
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