Tour de Pologne (st. 5)

Ecuadorian climber with Sepúlveda, Pedrero into short leading field at uphill finish; Arcas suffers crash with no consequences with 40km to go. Race leader Michal Kwiatkowski (SKY) wins stage five.

It was a toe-to-toe finish, sprinters against punchy climbers, at an unconventional uphill finish in Bielsko-Biała, end of stage five in the 2018 Tour de Pologne (152km). Race leader Michal Kwiatkowski (SKY) bested Dylan Teuns (BMC, 2nd), Enrico Battaglin (TLJ, 3rd)… and a pure sprinter, Pascal Ackermann (BOH, 4th), who had previously notched up two flat finishes and got into contention against the GC riders on gentle slopes.

The day’s racing only brought the Movistar Team one minor scare as Jorge Arcas crashed before the last Cat-1 climb without consequence. Richard Carapaz, Antonio Pedrero and Eduardo Sepúlveda again were part of the first echelon of favourites, before the two GC-defining stages in the Tatr mountains on Thursday and Friday.

Day six of the Tour of Poland will be just a 129km trek, yet with no flat sections from the start in Zakopane. Riders will cover four laps of a very hilly circuit, including the KOMs of Sciana Harnas (Cat-1), Lapsze (Cat-3) and Czarna Gora (Cat-2), the first of which will hold the finish at the Bukovina resort.