Bart De Clerq (Lotto-Soudal) won the 5th stage of the Tour de Pologne from Nowy Sacz to Zakopane for 223 km, the longest fraction in the 2015 edition.
The Belgian made his mark with the moves of a true finisseur about 3 km from the finish line, after the race lit up in the last challenging lap on the circuit in Zakopane, which featured three consecutive GPMs. Diego Ulissi (Lampre-Merida) was second and Sebastien Reichenbach (IAM Cycling) came in third.
Ready, set, go; the race heated up right away with a break that was initially made up of six riders. They eventually ended up in four as they came into the Zakopane circuit. The four riders were Slovenian Grega Bole (CCC Sprandi Polkowicw), Edward Beltran (Tinkoff-Saxo), Norwegian Vegard Breen and Belgian Kris Boeckmans (Lotto-Soudal). With about 70 km to go to the finish line, the Colombian Beltran broke ranks and ended up alone in the lead. Meanwhile, behind him, on the first category gpm ramps on Gubalowka, some with stretches at 18%, the best group was being pulled by Team Sky. Unfortunately, in the meantime the yesterday yellow jersey Kamil Zielinski lost contact from the group of the best.
Once Beltran had been caught the race became really decisive, during the last lap that lasted about 50 km on the Zakopane circuit. The group stayed strong, with about thirty riders being pulled by the light blue Astana jerseys led by Fabio Aru. The pair from Cannondale-Garmin, Davide Formolo and Moreno Moser, were steady in their wake, with all the best riders in the group, including Diego Ulissi, Davide Rebellin, Christophe Riblon, Sergio Henao, Ion Izagirre and Ilnur Zakarin. All these riders probably will be the stars tomorrow on the mountain circuit in Bukowina Tatrzanska.
The only one missing was World Champion Michal Kwiatkowski, who fell off from the best group at the beginning of the last lap. After the big guns jostled it out on the three GPMs, the final followed with bursts and counter bursts. De Clercq made the right move about 3 km away from the finish line and by then nobody could catch him. In the GC De Clerq leads with 4” on Diego Ulissi and 6” on Davide Formolo.
“It was a long and difficult stage; the final circuit featured three hard climbs, one right after the other. Today I felt really good and I managed to stick with the best when we came off the last gpm. Then in the final there were a series of attacks but none of them were very effective. I decided to go for it and when I realized that I had managed to gain a good advantage my only thought was to push it to the finish line. It wasn’t easy; the straightway was on a slight uphill and it seemed never ending, but I managed to win and I’m thrilled. Now I just want to enjoy this moment; I also managed to don the yellow leader’s jersey but I know it won’t be easy to hold on to it, because tomorrow we have a very difficult stage ahead of us” says Bart De Clercq.
Grega Bole (CCC Sprnadi Polkowice) is the new cyclamen Tauron jersey of the mountain grand prix. The white-red Lang Team jersey for the points’ classification remains on the shoulders of Marcel Kittel (Giant-Alpecin) and the blue Lotto jersey for the most active rider on the shoulders of Kamil Gradek (Reprezentacja Polski). BMC Racing is the new best team.
Tomorrow the 6th and queen stage of the 2015 Tour de Pologne, the mountain circuit of Bukowina Tatrzanska, 174 km with 8 gpm.
Complete standings at:
http://tourdepologne.pl/
