Paul Lapeira wins slow motion uphill sprint for victory at the Tour de Pologne

Paul Lapeira (Decathlon–AG2R La Mondiale) won the second stage of the Tour de Pologne with a perfectly timed uphill sprint.

The former French champion managed to stay in the wheels on the brutal uphill finish in Karpacz, remaining patient even as the leading group was whittled down to almost nothing. He eventually sprinted clear in the final 150m, opening up a gap on Mathias Vacek (Lidl–Trek), who finished second, and Victor Langellotti (Ineos Grenadiers), who took third.

Despite much of the final 12km being uphill, a group of well over 30 riders came into the final kilometre, where the road reared up to around a 10% gradient. Michał Kwiatkowski (Ineos Grenadiers) did much of the lead-out work for teammate Magnus Sheffield, but when the Polish rider was done with his effort, the American was swamped.

Jan Christen (UAE Team Emirates) tried his luck but was caught by Finn Fisher-Black (Red Bull–Bora–Hansgrohe) before Lapeira came over the top.

Much punchier than Monday’s opening day, stage two of this year’s Tour de Pologne would certainly see a change in the general classification, with very nearly 2,200m of vertical ascent over the 149.4km race between the Hotel Gołębiewski Karpacz and Karpacz.

The riders first headed east for a long long loop before returning close to the start town for two laps of a shorter circuit and finally heading to the finish. The first part of the race covered the
Przelecz Kowarska climb twice, riding it first one way and then the next, before the double ascent of Przeleczy Średnica on the small lap. The final was a beast, with an intermediate sprint inside the last six kilometres, a brief descent before the last three kilometres at a gradient of almost 7%.

One of the Polish national team riders attacked the moment the flag was waved and Patrick Stosz, who was in the breakaway on day one, was up the road with team mate Tomasz Budziński. They were joined Max Walker (EF Education-EasyPost) and Patrick Gamper (Jayco-AlUla), the quartet almost immediately gaining lead of two minutes.

Behind them the bunch took it easy, two early crashes, possibly caused by potholes or poor road surface, slowing them even further, allowing the leaders to extend their advantage to four minutes, though when the Visma | Lease a Bike team of overall leader Olav Kooij came to the front that dropped, settling at 3:00.

Just under the 90km to go marker, Stosz suffered a mechanical, dropping from the leading group, and though Budziński implored the other escapees to wait for his team mate there was little in the way of sympathy from the two WorldTour riders. Down to only three, the break began to lose time, and they entered the final 77km leading by only two minutes, Stosz slipping back to the peloton.

On the return ascent of the Kowarska climb Budziński attacked, taking the points, but by the time the three leaders started the first of the two small laps with 55km to go, they were just 1:11 ahead of a rampant peloton.

The three leaders put up a stout defence, but at the bottom of the seconds ascent of the Średnica climb Walker attacked, cresting it leading Budziński and Gamper by 30 seconds and the peloton a further 38 seconds behind, and 18km left to race.

Much of the final 12km was uphill, though the British rider had extended his lead to 1:20 as the road ramped upwards and headed to the intermediate sprint, but Walker’s advantage was being slowly eroded, though no one team took responsibility for the chase on the narrow, rural roads. However, when Ineos Grenadiers came to the front Walker’s time at the front seemed all but over and he was caught just before the sprint, five kilometres out.

Here UAE Team Emirates-XRG came to the front, though still the bunch was fairly tightly packed, only stretching out on the short descent before the final, punchy climb. Here the group slowly stretch out, riders slipping backwards and around 35 were at the front in the last 1,000m when Kwiatkowski made his effort.