The 72nd edition of the Tour de Pologne wrapped up on Saturday, August 8th, after 7 stages from Warsaw to Krakow for a total of more than 1000 km.
The name of the winner wasn’t determined until the very last 25 km time trial in the heart of Krakow. Spain’s Ion Izagirre (Movistar) eked out the win by a mere 2”; places of honour went to Belgians Bart e Clercq (Lotto Soudal) and Ben Hermans (BMC).
The race was a hard fought battle down to the very last metre. In fact, it was the tightest time difference ever seen in the history of the Tour de Pologne between the winner and the second place finalist. Up until now that record was held by the 1947 Tour de Pologne, when Stanislaw Grzelak won with 3” on Zdzislaw Stolarczyk.
After two second place results in 2013 and 2014, Ion Izagirre finally earned the right to step to the top of the podium and don the yellow Skandia jersey as the winner.
“We are extremely satisfied. We can say that this was a great Tour de Pologne,” says the General Director for TDP Czeslaw Lang. “From an organization standpoint everything went perfectly. The route turned out to be very interesting, and a high quality line up of starters, featuring many important names in international cycling, made sure to light up the race. We made it to the last stage with 10 riders all less than 30” apart and it was a compelling battle and spectacular show all the way to the end. Congratulations to Izagirre for the final victory, but all of the stages were very exciting. First there were the three stages for sprinters with Marcel Kittel returning to victory and Matteo Pelucchi scoring a deuce; then in Nowy Sacz there was room for the attackers. Following that we had two fantastic mountain stages at Zakopane and Bukowina, with hard routes where the riders had to give it their all to remain in the running. In the end there was a hard fought time trial. If we look at the final classification, there is plenty of quality among the top finalists, featuring lots of young riders with promising futures, especially Fabio Aru, who was second this year in the Giro d’Italia, and then Davide Formolo and Diego Ulissi. Not to mention important names like Sergio Henao, Christophe Riblon, Mikel Nieve and many more. Everyone gave it their best all the way to the end.”
This Tour de Pologne also shined a spotlight on Poland. “Now finally, after having a great race we can also count on quality riders. Poland won two very nice stages. The fourth one with the arrival at Nowy Sacz and an excellent effort by Maciej Bodnar, who won the stage, and Kamil Zielinski in the yellow jersey. Then there was the final time trial with the Polish National champion in the specialty Marcin Bialoblocki, a guy with an interesting story. Furthermore, Maciej Paterski won the Tauron cyclamen jersey for best climber, so it remains in Poland, as does the blue Lotto jersey for most active rider in the group scored by Kamil Gradek. I’m sorry that the Tour de Pologne didn’t go so well for Michal Kwiatkowski, who however remains the brightest star in our movement with Rafal Majka. With his rainbow World Champion jersey he fired up the crowds in the squares and along the streets of Poland, which initial data estimates to have been around 3 and a half million over the week” says Czeslaw Lang.
The Tour de Pologne also entertained with the other events correlated to the professional race. The Tour de Pologne Amatorow, the granfondo dedicated to amateurs and cycling tourists, took place in Bukowina Tatrzanska on part of the same route later ridden by the pros. There were more than 1800 fans lined up for the start. These are record numbers; no other amateur cycling race had ever reached these numbers in Poland. And then there was the Nutella Mini Tour de Pologne, featuring races open to kids every day on the final circuit of each stage, which brought out about 3000 kids along for the ride. They are the finest victory, the future of the Polish cycling movement.
