Weening and Wiggins Seal Wins at Tour of Poland
After the most difficult final stages, riders of 70th Tour of Poland reach the last finish line by showing their legs at the Individual Time Trial. The classifications shuffled again, as Dutchman Pieter Weening (Orica-GreenEdge), to most people’s surprise, took over the overall win by 56 seconds ahead of to-be winners of Cancellara and former stage winner Phinney. On the podium, Sir Bradley Wiggins took top honours with his very first stage win this season, proving his TT specialty is still unbeatable and there to be hailed.
Pieter Weening
Stage 5 saw GC contender teams of Colombia then Team Sky leading the peloton in the hope of winning the stage and move their leaders to the front of the GC ranking, however Norwegian national champion Thor Hushovd sprinted to his second stage win in mere three days, his BMC team’s third straight good news at Tour of Poland.
Stage 6 was a long and fast one. With ten categorized climbs and the attraction of time bonuses at the KOM, riders were all aggressive to move and attack. Colombian Atapuma started his lead over the group and the motivated stage 2 winner Christopher Riblon (AG2R) clinched on him, arriving home only 2 seconds down to the Colombian, who became the stage winner, but had the much aspirated yellow jersey on the back and turned everyone crazy about his great successes following Tour de France stage win in the Alps.
Darwin Atapuma
Christopher Riblon
The final and decisive stage was beyond expectation of the audience. Hopefuls like Taylor Phinney (BMC), Fabian Cancellara and Sir Bradley Wiggins were ready to show their expertise in time trial. When Phinney set the timing record for 47’50’’ as the temporary stage leader, Fabian Cancellara came home at 47’32’’, putting Phinney down to the third place. Then the winning moment came, when all eyes were on Sir Bradley Wiggins finished the 37km stage at 46’36’’, with his lead of 56 seconds over Cancellara, he stepped onto the podium and opened his first winning champion of this year.
Bradley Wiggins
“Confirmed with confidence” by the stage win, Wiggins will move on to the Eneco Tour, World Championship then perhaps Tour of Beijing to more attemps* for victories to his name before the race season ends. His highest ranked teammate of this race, Sergio Henao finished no.5.
Pieter Weening, gaining the overall lead of this year’s Tour of Poland, said he started thinking about the win at the very first day of the race, but the stages were hard and competitive, the newly-introduced UCI rules of 6-man squad plus the unique time bonus system (combining KOM and Intermediate Sprint points and the first three riders are beneficiaries for bonuses) were “confusing”, Weening still felt confident in this race of more openness and room for competition.
With his overall victory, Weening now has 100 UCI WorldTour points, Riblon 70 points that are valuable for their individual, team and nation ranking this year.
Local favorite and 4-time yellow jersey leader of this year’s Tour de Pologne Rafal Majka (Team Saxo-Tinkoff) finished the race ranked no.4. Weening noticed his nervousness in the previous stages and he lost too much energy, impacting the performance. The Poles were still glad to see their countrymen on the podium, as Marczynski (Vacansoleil) claimed the best climber and Huzarski (Team Netapp) the most active rider, in the red jersey.
Rafal Majka
Bartosz Huzarski
Stage 7 Ranking
1WIGGINS Bradley – SKY 46′ 36”
2CANCELLARA Fabian – RLT + 00′ 56”
3PHINNEY Taylor – BMC + 01′ 14”
4PINOTTI Marco – BMC+ 01′ 20”
5VANDEWALLE Kristof – OPQ + 01′ 40”
6WEENING Pieter – OGE + 01′ 44”
7IZAGUIRRE INSAUSTI Jon – EUS + 02′ 05”
8NERZ Dominik – BMC+ 02′ 13”
9CHERNETSKI Sergei – KAT + 02′ 15”
10MAJKA Rafał – TST + 02′ 17”
General Classification
1WEENING Pieter – OGE 31h 58′ 07”
2IZAGUIRRE INSAUSTI Jon – EUS + 00′ 13”
3RIBLON Christophe – ALM + 00′ 16”
4MAJKA Rafał – TST + 00′ 26”
5HENAO MONTOYA Sergio Luis – SKY + 00′ 51”
6CAPECCHI Eros – MOV + 00′ 51”
7POZZOVIVO Domenico – ALM + 01′ 14”
8BASSO Ivan – CAN + 01′ 38”
9KANGERT Tanel – AST + 02′ 35”
10SORENSEN Chris Anker – TST + 02′ 50”
Best climber classification
1MARCZYŃSKI Tomasz – VCD 86
2ATAPUMA HURTADO Darwin – COL 64
3HUZARSKI Bartosz – TEN 58
4SZMYD Sylwester – MOV 23
5RIBLON Christophe – ALM20
6HOWES Alex – GRS 15
7CHERNETSKI Sergei – KAT 14
8SORENSEN Chris Anker – TST 13
9IZAGUIRRE INSAUSTI Jon – EUS 12
10PREIDLER Georg – ARG 12
Points classification
1MAJKA Rafał – TST 68
2IZAGUIRRE INSAUSTI Jon – EUS 66
3RIBLON Christophe – ALM 65
4WEENING Pieter – OGE 62
5HENAO MONTOYA Sergio Luis – SKY 56
6HUSHOVD Thor – BMC 55
7ULISSI Diego – LAM 51
8VON HOFF Steele – GRS 49
9PHINNEY Taylor – BMC 46
10POZZOVIVO Domenico – ALM 42
Most active Rider Classification
1HUZARSKI Bartosz – TEN 13
2MADRAZO RUIZ Angel – MOV 7
3MATYSIAK Bartłomiej – CCC 6
4FRANK Mathias – BMC 3
5CIEŚLIK Paweł – POL 3
6GRADEK Kamil – POL 3
7DUQUE Leonardo Fabio – COL 3
8MESTRE Ricardo – EUS 3
9KONIG Leopold – TEN 2
10BELLEMAKERS Dirk – LTB 2
Team Classification
1RADIOSHACK LEOPARD TREKRLT95h 58′ 50”
2CANNONDALE PRO CYCLINGCAN + 19′ 41”
3TEAM SAXO – TINKOFFTST + 26′ 22”
4AG2R LA MONDIALEALM + 31′ 14”
5BMC RACING TEAMBMC + 35′ 28”
6MOVISTAR TEAMMOV + 38′ 12”
7EUSKALTEL – EUSKADIEUS + 50′ 14”
8OMEGA PHARMA – QUICKSTEPOPQ + 53′ 32”
9TEAM ARGOS SHIMANOARG + 56′ 04”
10KATUSHA TEAMKAT + 01h 04′ 38”
11LAMPRE – MERIDA LAM + 01h 17′ 45”
12BELKIN-PRO CYCLING TEAMBEL + 01h 19′ 11”
13CCC POLKOWICE POLSATCCC + 01h 31′ 15”
14PRO TEAM ASTANAAST + 01h 33′ 44”
15SKY PROCYCLING SKY + 01h 34′ 04”
16Française des JeuxFDJ + 01h 44′ 07”
17VACANSOLEIL – DCM PRO CYCLING TEAM VCD + 01h 50′ 13”
18COLOMBIA COL + 02h 01′ 44”
19TEAM NETTAPP – ENDURATEN + 02h 02′ 31”
20GARMIN – SHARPGRS + 02h 05′ 51”
21LOTTO BELISOL TEAMLTB + 02h 14′ 57”
22ORICA GREENEDGEOGE + 03h 28′ 59”
23REPREZENTACJA POLSKI POL + 03h 44′ 30”
Previous Stage Winners
– Stage 1, Rovereto – Madonna di Campiglio, Diego ULISSI (Lampre Merida)
– Stage 2, Marilleva – Passo Pordoi, Christophe RIBLON (Ag2R La Mondiale)
– Stage 3, Kraków – Rzeszów, Thor HUSHOVD (BMC)
– Stage 4, Taylor Phinney (USA) BMC Racing Team
– Stage 5, Nowy Targ – Zakopane, Thor Hushovd (Nor) BMC Racing Team
– Stage 6, BUKOVINA Terma Hotel Spa – Bukowina Tatrzańska, Darwin Atapuma (Col) Colombia Coldeportes
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