Marcel Kittel unleashed all his power at the finish line in Warsaw.
The strong German rider from Team Giant-Alpecin chose the first stage in the Tour de Pologne to make a winning comeback, breaking a dry spell that had lasted since January, when he won the opening criterium in the Tour Down Under in Australia.
The 72nd Tour de Pologne took off from the Narodowy Stadium in Warsaw in the presence of the Polish Prime Minister, Ms. Ewa Kopacz, Sport Minister Adam Korol and the Major of Warsaw Ms. Hanna Gronkiewicz-Waltz who met with General Director for the race Czeslaw Lang, World Champion Michal Kwiatkowski and the riders from Reprezetacja Polski, the Polish national team.
The group immediately took up a very fast average speed on the city circuit for 10 laps and a total of 122 km. Three riders really lit up the stage: Poles Adrian Kurek (CCC Sprandi Polkowice) and Pawel Bernas (Raprezentacja Polski), and Slovenian Matej Mohric (Cannondale-Garmin). The three riders gained a maximum advantage of about 1 minute with the pack being pulled by the sprinting teams and not leaving them much space, catching up with them in the second-to-last lap.
In the final sprint Marcel Kittel came in ahead of Australian Caleb Ewan (Orica GreenEdge) and Italian Niccolò Bonifazio (Lampre-Merida), in that order. Marcel Kittel also gets the pleasure of wearing the first yellow Skandia jersey as the leader in the general classification, and the white-red Lang Team jersey for the points’ standings. For Marcel Kittel this is the fifth career win at Tour de Pologne, in 2011 edition he did the poker winning four stages.
“I’m really, really happy to be back at the Tour de Pologne” says Marcel Kittel. “I celebrated my first World Tour victories here, it was a breakthrough for me in my career, so to be back in this country at this race is special for me. Also because it was a very difficult time, I was really looking forward to the races here for the wins. For a sprinter it was good race, it was a tricky final, that made it special. A lot of teams wanted to do a sprint, then it was difficult to stay at the front so I have to say thank you to my teammates – they did a great job by keeping me in a good position, staying calm, and that was our advantage today. You can say the last corner is not a normal sprint, it was quite dangerous because you have only 70 metres to the finish line after the corner, so you have to do all the hard work before the corner, and go with high speed into it.. You saw today with Caleb Ewan it was pretty close, and it felt a bit like Moto GP coming into that last corner, fighting for the win, nobody knows if he can make it first to the finish line, so it was exciting. We want to defend the jersey, and that means we have to win the stages that are coming up, definitely the next two, I don’t know about the fourth one. I’m very relieved, really. This morning I woke up and I thought I could cut the pressure that was in myself with a knife because it was so tense. I was super relieved to win, because it’s a long time since I last won – it has proved to myself that I can come through difficult situations. I’m happy I had my teammates around me today they did a good job for me and that is what we will do the next days. I think you can’t compare it [my season] at all to last year, and I don’t want to do that. For me it’s all about the next weeks coming up – I have a really big focus on the Tour de Pologne, also Hamburg, Plouay classics, they are the most important races for me that I have left this year. [Legs] Good. I felt really confident already when I travelled here to Poland, I did a lot of motor pacing. I tried to do everything as good as possible and I was really focused. I’m glad that it worked now already on the first stage and I will see what’s coming up in the next days”.
“Today Polish fans gave me so much power and energy; thanks to that in the end I managed not to lose seconds that are important in the GC. Today we had to be careful, especially before Karowa Street (the one and only climb with a mountain prime). It was important to find the right place in the peloton and my team really helped me do this” says World Champion Michal Kwiatkowski.
In the other classifications Adrian Kurek donned the cyclamen Tauron jersey for the mountain grand prix and Matej Mohoric took the blue Lotto jersey as the most active rider. The best team is LottoNL-Jumbo.
