After an exciting GC day, we are back to sprinter’s day. 226km between Sanok and Rzeszów is the longest stage of this year’s Tour de Pologne. The race’s first half contained 3 classified climbs totalling 2835m, but the second part was fairly flat.
Heinrich Haussler did not start stage 3 due to medical reasons. He suffers from sciatica and will need further diagnostic and treatment.
The early breakaway of 12 (later reduced to 10) kept the distance for most of the stage, but around 3 minutes. Our riders were part of the group that did the majority of work during the day to keep escapees at a safe distance and pull them back towards the end of the stage. Our team planned to lead out Bauhaus to the finish line, but we felt Haussler was the missing piece to bring Bauhaus “home”. Fernando Gaviria and young Olav Kooji edged Bauhaus at the finish line, giving our team 3 podiums in the first 3 days.
Phil Bauhaus: ”It was a super long day, hard race. We started pulling with Kevin Inkelaar, and later Eros Capecchi was working with the front group. In the end, it was a sprint finish like expected. I’m quite disappointed as I wanted to win again for the team, they did a good job. Matej did a super good lead-out, but I still felt it was a bit long, so the other sprinters came from behind. I did accelerate to the same speed, but unfortunately, I couldn’t hold it that long.” Asked about the next stages and if he’ll take the foot off the gas pedal down until stage 7 when is the next sprint opportunity, Phil said: “No, I’ll be working for the team in the next 3 days. Matej is in super good condition, and I think we have a great chance for GC with him. We’ll try our best to bring him maybe the leaders jersey, and I’ll be helping with that.”
Tim Harris, our SD: “It was a very long stage and quite tricky because in the middle of the stage we had 3 quite hard hills. There was a group of 12 riders away, so we had to pull quite hard, helping Quickstep and UAE to bring the break back. Unfortunately, we missed Heinrich Haussler because he had to retire before the race with a sciatica problem, and we really missed him in the final sprint. Phil did a fantastic job getting 3rd, but we missed that final lead out from Haussler. Otherwise, I think Phil would probably have won today. We are disappointed that we lost Haussler today, but otherwise excellent ride from the team. Upwards and onwards for tomorrow.“
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