Team Bahrain Victorious’ Slovenian superstar Matej Mohorič extended his overall lead at the Tour of Poland after another second place finish on Wednesday. But in many ways that is the least important news from the finish of Stage 5 to Bielsko-Biala.

With around 7 of the 199 kilometres remaining, a motorbike pilot lost control of his TV bike, careering into supporters at 70kph, and trapping a small girl underneath the machine. The leading riders saw the incident take place just in front of them, and understandably lost motivation to fully contest victory in the closing stages.

Nonetheless, a toned-down sprint did take place, won by Marijn van den Berg (EF). Michal Kwiatkowski (Ineos) followed, but was soon passed by Mohorič and João Almeida (UAE). 

On the raceday with the most elevation gain of the week, Bahrain’s teamwork and strategy was inch perfect from the start. Michal Golaś in the team car, and Damiano Caruso & Mohorič on the road, monitored which riders were attempting to get away, and carefully managed the makeup of the breakaway. The group of five they eventually let go included specialist Thomas de Ghent, but the instructions were clear, and their gap was kept between three & five minutes.

Behind, Bahrain’s Kamil Gradek had clearly activated ‘beast mode’ at kilometre 0, and he led the entire peloton for over 100kms in one of the most impressive rides of his career. ‘Chapeau’ to our Polish gentle giant.

With 80km left, Ineos and UAE finally came to the front to join the Bahrain jerseys that had been at the head of the bunch all day. Looking for a stage victory and to move up on GC, the pressure shifted to them to close down the break, which the three leading teams did on the finishing circuit.

The dreadful accident followed, before the final straight and a second second this week for Matej, to add to Sunday’s win.

After the podium, concern for those injured spectators was at the forefront of his mind:

“We didn’t really want to sprint, we wanted to stop. But the last time over the climb it seemed that the race went on so I still had to go for the bonus seconds. What happened with the motorbike shook us all; we wanted to stop the race. My heart sank, and I wasn’t thinking about the sprint at all, I was thinking about the people that were involved and I just hope everybody is alright.”

The 28 year old takes a 12 second GC lead into tomorrow’s 16.6km individual time trial in Katowice, and also remains in the points jersey.

“Tomorrow I go into the time trial as overall leader, so I will give my best. It’s actually not that often that I’ve gone as hard as I can against the clock, so I hope tomorrow to do the best time trial of my life. I know that Almeida and Kwiato are favourites to beat me, but I have really good legs so you never know…”

Tonight the thoughts and wishes of all of us at Team Bahrain Victorious are with those caught up in the accident today.