Tour of Poland

Stage 5:  Astrzebie Zdroj to Ustron, 149km/93mi

By Cathy Mehl

On the first of two back-to-back uphill finishes, Thursday’s stage 5 in the Tour of Poland brought on another new race leader.  An attack put in by 23-year old Daniel Martin (Garmin) on the final climb lifted the Irish rider to the stage win and into the yellow jersey with an advantage of 14-seconds over Grega Bole (Lampre-Farnese Vini).  A select group of nine riders tried to follow Martin’s strong effort, but no one could reach him before the finish line, leaving the group to sprint it out with second and third places going to Bole and Sylvester Szmyd (Liquigas-Doimo) on the stage.  Team RadioShack’s Tiago Machado was just off the pace of the chasing group, taking 11th at 31 seconds back.  His efforts moved our Portuguese rider into 12th overall as the best placed Team rider.

“Today was ok,” said Team Director Viatcheslav Ekimov after the stage.  “The race wasn’t really fast enough to make a big difference on the last climb and then Machado had a little difficulty following the move by Martin.  But he did well and Ivan Rovny and Ben Hermans are close to each other too, less than a minute from the winner.  Tomorrow will be a long, hard day.  Let’s see what we can achieve then.”

Earlier rain passed through the area leaving drying roads for today’s partially cloudy stage.   The peloton was active with breakaways in the early miles before a group of three was finally successful after 30km of riding.    Included in the group of six were Borut Bozic and Johnny Hoogerland of Vacansoleil. Aided by Caisse d’Epargne,  Martin put his men on the front and Garmin worked to bring back the breakaway, knowing Martin had the legs to pull off the win.  With 3km to go, Martin attacked, knowing full-well he only needed 18 seconds to take over the race lead.  He quickly gapped the chasers and waiting to see the gap after he crossed the finish line, narrowly holding a two second advantage to the group of nine that came in 20-seconds back.

There are two stages to go in the 67th Tour of Poland.  Friday’s stage of 228.5km/142mi is another long suffer-fest  in the mountains before bringing the race to a conclusion on a sprint stage on Saturday.  With another uphill finish it will be difficult for Martin to hold on to the jersey, making for exciting racing as the Tour of Poland winds down.

Beyond the Finish Line: Ustron is a well-known health resort in the southern part of Poland. Like other towns in the vicinity  it is a perfect setting to admire mountain scenery and to go in for winter sports. There is a wide variety of Ustron hotels of various standards.  What is interesting about the hotels in Ustron is that almost all of them are built in the same way, constructed in the shape of a pyramid.

Top Ten Results

1              Daniel Martin (Irl) Garmin - Transitions  3:51:13                   

2              Grega Bole (Slo) Lampre-Farnese Vini    0:00:20  

3              Sylvester Szmyd (Pol) Liquigas-Doimo                     

4              Mauro Santambrogio (Ita) BMC Racing Team                       

5              Diego Ulissi (Ita) Lampre-Farnese Vini                     

6              Bauke Mollema (Ned) Rabobank                               

7              Michael Albasini (Swi) Team HTC - Columbia                         

8              Marek Rutkiewicz (Pol) Poland BGZ                          

9              Thomas Danielson (USA) Garmin - Transitions                     

10           Alessandro Ballan (Ita) BMC Racing Team

Brief Team RadioShack Results – more when available

11           Tiago Machado (Por) 0:00:31

General Classification after Stage 5

1              Daniel Martin (Irl) Garmin - Transitions  20:52:11                

2              Grega Bole (Slo) Lampre-Farnese Vini    0:00:14  

3              Alessandro Ballan (Ita) BMC Racing Team              0:00:21  

4              Sylvester Szmyd (Pol) Liquigas-Doimo    0:00:26  

5              Michael Albasini (Swi) Team HTC - Columbia        0:00:28  

6              Bauke Mollema (Ned) Rabobank              0:00:29  

7              Marek Rutkiewicz (Pol) Poland BGZ         0:00:30  

8              Diego Ulissi (Ita) Lampre-Farnese Vini                     

9              Mauro Santambrogio (Ita) BMC Racing Team                       

10            Thomas Danielson (USA) Garmin - Transitions

Brief Team RadioShack Results – more when available

12           Tiago Machado (Por)  0:00:41