Matej Mohoric wins the Tour de Pologne

Following his stage win in Karpacz, Matej Mohoric continued to perform strongly at this year’s Tour de Pologne: He finished both stages 3 and 5 in 2nd position and then rose to the occasion in the individual time trial to hold on to the GC lead by a scant 74 hundredth of a second over João Almeida. As for the conclusive stage, Team BAHRAIN VICTORIOUS did all it could to make sure this would not change anymore.

The Tour de Pologne is part of the World Tour, and this year’s edition featured seven stages. Team BAHRAIN VICTORIOUS headed into this stage race with two main objectives: First, Matej Mohoric, as the team’s captain, was to compete for the overall win, and second young Matevz Govekar was supposed to get involved in the three likely bunch sprints of the race. The riders in red, orange and black got to celebrate for the first time at the end of stage 2 when Matej Mohoric proved to be the strongest rider in a demanding uphill finale and got the stage win as a reward. The following day’s stage also ended with some steep uphill ramps, and Matej Mohoric again was contesting for the win. In the end, he almost managed to catch out Rafal Majka and snatch a second win in as many days.

The fourth stage of the race ended in a bunch sprint, and Matevz Govekar crossed the line in 13th. As for the fifth stage, a reduced bunch approached the finish line to sprint for the win. Since Matej Mohoric only got beaten by Marijn van den Berg, the Slovene managed to further extend his GC lead to 12 seconds, thanks to the bonifications. But there still was a flat individual time trial over 16.6 kilometres on the penultimate day, and João Almeida as the runner-up on GC, is known as a strong time trialist. As all riders had passed the intermediate point of the course, the Portuguese rider had more than just made up this deficit. But Matej Mohoric had saved some energy for the second part of his race against the clock, and on the finish line, he had reduced his deficit to Almeida to 11.26 seconds.

Thus Mohoric held onto a scant lead of 74 hundredths of a second before the conclusive and mostly flat stage. All the way to the first intermediate sprint, Team BAHRAIN VICTORIOUS showed a strong team effort, and with Andrea Pasqualon's help, Matej Mohoric edged out Almeida at this intermediate sprint to add another second to his lead. Right after that, three riders went up the road only to be caught with 15 Kilometers to go. From there, Matej Mohoric was kept at the sharp end of the race and out of trouble all the way to the three-kilometre-to-go banner. And in the end, Andrea Pasqualon still had some energy left to contest the bunch sprint and cross the line in 10th place. Apart from winning the GC of the Tour de Pologne by 1.74 seconds, Matej Mohoric also won the points classification of the race.

80TH TOUR DE POLOGNE, STAGE 3: WALBRZYCH - DUSZNIKI ZDROJ, 162.3KM
1. Rafal Majka, POL, in 4:07.55 hours
2. Matej Mohoric, SVN/TEAM BAHRAIN VICTORIOUS, st
3. Michal Kwiatkowski, POL, st

STAGE 5: PSZCZYNA - BIELSKO-BIALA, 198.8KM
1. Marijn van den Berg, NED, in 4:51.27 hours
2. Matej Mohoric, SVN/TEAM BAHRAIN VICTORIOUS, st
3. João Almeida, POR, st

FINAL OVERALL STANDINGS:
1. Matej Mohoric, SVN/TEAM BAHRAIN VICTORIOUS, in 26.17.48 hours
2. João Almeida, POR, + 0.01
3. Michal Kwiatkowski, POL, + 0.17

FINAL POINTS CLASSIFICATION:
1. Matej Mohoric, SVN/TEAM BAHRAIN VICTORIOUS, 68 points
2. João Almeida, POR, 68 points
3. Michal Kwiatkowski, POL, 66 points

Photos: Sprint Cycling Agency