Jan Christen punches to emphatic uphill victory on Tour de Pologne stage 5

Jan Christen (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) powered to victory in an uphill finish to Kocierz Resort on stage 5 of the Tour de Pologne ahead of Marco Brenner (Tudor).

The 218.9km stage featured a category one ascent in the final 40km before a steep ramp to the finish at Kocierz Resort where Christen made the difference. 

A strong six-rider breakaway including Dries de Bondt and Patrick Gamper (Jayco AlUla), Paul Magnier (Soudal Quick-Step), Tim Naberman (Picnic-PostNL), Taco van der Hoorn (Lotto-Intermarché) and Rémi Cavagna (Groupama-FDJ United) put pressure on the chasing peloton, remaining clear until 4km to go.

The run-in to the final ramp was frantic, with Michał Kwiatkowski (Netcompany-Ineos) leading as the road began to rise with just under 3km remaining, with the gradients rising towards 16%.

Neilson Powless (EF Education-EasyPost) stretched out the dwindling bunch, as the race leader Bart Lemmen (Visma | Lease a Bike) remained in contention. 

Christen rocketed clear with 2.2km remaining with an emphatic acceleration which left the rest of the competition looking at one another, simply unable to match.

Brenner managed to wriggle clear of the competition as the gradients eased inside the final kilometre, as he attempted to chase down Christen, and he caught the Swiss champion inside the final 500m. 

The German punched straight past Christen, but the Swiss rider was able to respond and secure an impressive victory. Race leader Bart Lemmen (Visma | Lease a Bike) finished in the next group on the road in 11th, a handful of seconds back to defend the yellow jersey.

Dries de Bondt (Jayco AlUla) and Paul Magnier (Soudal Quick-Step) were the first two riders to break clear who made the day’s breakaway. The duo would be joined by Tim Naberman (Picnic-PostNL), Filip Maciejuk (Movistar) and Taco van der Hoorn (Lotto-Intermarché).

The group would be kept on a relatively tight leash, allowing the opportunity for counter-attacks to jump across. Ethan Hayter (Soudal Quick-Step) reignited the action with an attempt, but to no avail. 

However, this sparked an opportunity for Rémi Cavagna (Groupama-FDJ United) and Patrick Gamper (Jayco AlUla) to break clear from the peloton and power across to the breakaway.

Maciejuk suffered a mechanical with around 60km remaining and shortly before the intermediate sprint, ending the Polish rider’s spell at the head of the race. 

The pace in the peloton ramped up inside the final 50km on the run-in to the Przełęcz Przegibek climb, with Netcompany-Ineos particularly active in the chase. 

The breakaway remained ahead at the summit of the climb with around 30km to go, though with their advantage slashed to around 30 seconds. There was an incident in the peloton on the climb, as Magnus Sheffield (Netcompany-Ineos) crashed, though the American was able to quickly remount. 

On the descent, the breakaway was able to re-extend their advantage beyond the minute mark heading inside the final 20km.

De Bondt had spent all his resources with 8.8km remaining, with the Belgian dropping back from the breakaway and quickly swallowed by the marauding peloton who were rapidly closing in on the breakaway ahead of the steep kicker to the finish line. 

There was a crash in the peloton just a few hundred metres later involving Stefan Bissegger (Decathlon CMA CGM) and Aleksandr Vlasov (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe, though the crash didn’t disrupt the catch of the breakaway, which came with 4km remaining.