Monday sees the start of the 81st ‘Tour de Pologne’, and Bahrain Victorious will take to the start as reigning champion after Matej Mohoricč’s phenomenal overall victory. Matej will be on the startlist again this year, and the team travels to the seven-day event with lofty ambitions again.
As usual this is the only World Tour race between the Tour de France and the Vuelta a España, and always attracts a high quality field of all kinds of top class riders. The 2024 edition is no exception, which means the battle for both stages and classifications will be fierce.
Monday’s opening stage is already a chance for the General Classification contenders to put down a marker, as it finishes with a tough climb to Karpacz. Karpacz was the location for the finish of S2 in 2023, which saw Mohorič take the stage and the leader’s jersey, which he held on to until the end. The finish is slightly different this time: 7.2 km at 4.3%, but gets steeper as it goes on. The last 1.3 km averages 8.3% with some sections as much as 10%.
As well as the Slovenian, who will be the leader again, Pello Bilbao will return to Poland, having finished on the podium on his only other participation in 2022. He is co-leader, and is aiming to return to form after sickness forced him to abandon the Tour de France last month.
Helping those two riders on the GC days will be Italian Edoardo Zambanini, who continues his impressive season and will add great value in on the climbs. And with ‘Zamba’ comes the experience and cool head of home rider Łukasz Wiśniowski.
Lead Sports Director for the week is Michal Golaś, who says,
“The race is a bit harder this year compared to 2023. We have a couple of rolling stages with short, steep climbs, and stages 1, 3 & 6 plus the time trial, will be the important ones for GC.
Matej is the defending champion from last year and he won it by a single second, so we know how important the bonus seconds can be.”
The finish of stage 2 is the same as the previous day, but comes at the end of at 15.4 lm individual time trial which is uphill from start to finish. After the first two days, the GC will be taking shape, before Wednesday’s from Walbrzych to Duszniki-Zdrój, which is potentially the toughest test of the week. There are over 3,100 vertical metres in the 155.5 km route, including a very challenging last 900m with maximum gradients of 14%.
Stages 4 (Kudowa-Zdrój – Prudnik, 194.7 km), 5 (Katowice – Katowice, 187.3 km), and 7 (Kopalnnia Soli Wieliczka – Krakow, 143.1 km), are flatter profiles, and offer chances for classics riders or sprinters. This is where Phil Bauhaus, Fred Wright, and Andrea Pasqualon will come to the fore. Bauhaus is the designated sprinter of course, and will be hoping to find his race rhythm after participating at both the Giro and the Tour already this season. ‘Pasqua’ will be his last man in the finales, and as such a versatile rider, Wright will be crucial support every day as well as having the chance to make breakaways.
The ‘Queen’ stage is the penultimate one, and sees the peloton once again have over 3,100m of climbing ahead of them. The toughest ascent crests with just 12km remaining, and while the average gradient isn’t too daunting, it does go over 20% in places.
Golaś concludes,
“With Matej and Pello coming from the Tour, and Zamba to help in the mountains, I think we will be competitive, and I would like to do well on GC again. We also have a couple of good chances for Phil so we will support hime as much as we can, and I think the team is good enough to make a good lead out to fight for sprint wins.
It’s a classic Tour of Poland parcours, and another nice week ahead. The race will be decided by a few seconds again, but the nature of the Time Trial could make more of a difference than in previous editions.”
