Tour of Poland **Spoilers**

blazing_saddles

Crit King Kittel.
Blow a large raspberry in the general direction of this race..............thus far.

luckao

Did they have so many laps of circuits on so many stages during last year's edition. It looks like all but one of the stages will consist of laps.

RichN95.

Adam Blythe came 5th, which makes him the sixth British rider to get a ranking point this year. If one of the Sky guys can do similar in the next few stages, the GB Worlds allocation will go up to 7 (GB look almost certain to finish in the top 10).

Gazzetta67

ZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzz is the race finished yet ? 8)

smithy21

This race!!! How dull??

I feel like I should pay attention to what is happening but jesus its tedious. It almost seems like half the peloton cant be arsed either. I'm sure it was moderately interesting last year or am I imagining things.

Is it vuelta time yet?

Gazzaputt

I actually didn't finish watching it last night.

Riding around a loop in Katowice? I've been there and it's a shitehole and it looked even worse in HD.

Please tell me how this event got Protour status?

Gazzetta67

Gazzaputt wrote:

I actually didn't finish watching it last night.

Riding around a loop in Katowice? I've been there and it's a shitehole and it looked even worse in HD.

Please tell me how this event got Protour status?

You keep waiting for round the next corner your going to see a russian tank sitting in the next street, no wonder the poles are all over here working.

Maybe i`m bias but the Tour of Britain should be on around this time not the middle of september. God help us if poland bid for the TDF start !!!!

It`s like watching a very bad world championship course everyday in a dump of a place as for it getting protour status maybe money talks ???

FJS

Today's stage is pretty much the same as stage 4 last year, and that was when the tour of poland started to get interesting. Some substantial climbs halfway with bits at 22%, finish circuit with a short 10% climb and an uphill cobbled finish. It was that stage last year with the finish line 50 meter after a 90 degree corner - with 2 Lampres 1 and 2. It was also the stage where Marco Marcato thought he had won with 1 lap to go... good viewing. Let's hope today will be as entertaining.

Difficult one for PTP - do Haussler, Matthews or Degenkolb make it over the climbs halfway? It should be a good stage for the likes of Di Luca, Scarponi, Pozzato or Sagan, but are they here to race, and in good shape, or just for training?

FJS

BMC rider ahead, only one left of early break - Lampre now doing all the chasing. Scarponi feeling good?

FJS

Nibali attacking on the last climb in the last lap - this won't be a Kittel stage

FJS

Sagan takes it easily

Crazy little finishing circuit again, although not as eventful as last year - it's just not the same without Johnny H

squired

1 SAGAN Peter 18 LIQ - 10s 04h 21' 15''
2 MARTIN Daniel 1 GRM - 6s + 00' 03''
3 MARCATO Marco 167 VCD - 8s + 00' 03''
4 MARTENS Paul 125 RAB + 00' 03''
5 WEGMANN Fabian 78 LEO + 00' 03''
6 CARDOSO Manuel 132 RSH + 00' 03''
7 BAKELANTS Jan 111 OLO + 00' 03''
8 GASPAROTTO Enrico 104 AST + 00' 03''
9 FEILLU Romain 163 VCD + 00' 03''
10 LAGUTIN Sergey 166 VCD + 00' 03''
11 KENNAUGH Peter 94 SKY + 00' 03''
12 HUZARSKI Bartosz 211 POL + 00' 03''
13 CUMMINGS Stephen 92 SKY + 00' 03''
14 NOCENTINI Rinaldo 171 ALM + 00' 03''
15 PAOLINI Luca 45 KAT + 00' 03''
16 SCARPONI Michele 22 LAM + 00' 03''
17 MARCZYNSKI Tomasz 204 CCC + 00' 03''
18 RIBLON Christophe 178 ALM + 00' 03''
19 TANNER David 52 SBS + 00' 10''
20 POELS Wout 168 VCD + 00' 10''
21 VILA ERRANDONEA Patxi Javier 193 DER + 00' 10''
22 KESSIAKOFF Fredrik 108 AST + 00' 10''
23 PATERSKI Maciej 17 LIQ + 00' 10''
24 RUTKIEWICZ Marek 201 CCC + 00' 10''
25 NIEMIEC Przemyslaw 21 LAM + 00' 10''

afx237vi

What's with the completely random finishing times?! Stage 1 was over by lunchtime, stages 2, 3 and 4 were around 6ish, and today's was somewhere in between.

RichN95.

afx237vi wrote:

What's with the completely random finishing times?! Stage 1 was over by lunchtime, stages 2, 3 and 4 were around 6ish, and today's was somewhere in between.

What do you expect from a nation of builders. They'll knock off when they feel like it.

blazing_saddles

afx237vi wrote:

What's with the completely random finishing times?! Stage 1 was over by lunchtime, stages 2, 3 and 4 were around 6ish, and today's was somewhere in between.

Caught me out. Just managed to catch the finish..............after Burgos.
Back to 4-30pm, tomorrow.
Saturday in Krakow, is a 7-30pm start! (late night building? :P )

cogidubnus

How soon can an event lose protour status? I didnt see last years, but this has been a unorganised, unattractive snoozefest. Surely we can do better?

FJS

Cogidubnus wrote:

How soon can an event lose protour status? I didnt see last years, but this has been a unorganised, unattractive snoozefest. Surely we can do better?

Today definitely wasn't a snoozefest. Did you watch it? Most one week races have a couple of flat duff stages, but I get the impression that Poland suffers a bit from post-TdF expectations. There are actually pretty good crowds for weekday finishes. Last year the second half of the week was good racing, and that could be the case now. It would be good if they can get rid of the boring flat crits the first three days, and the grey communist-era architecture doesn't help, but it's certainly not the worst week of racing on the calendar.

DeadCalm

RichN95 wrote:

Adam Blythe came 5th, which makes him the sixth British rider to get a ranking point this year. If one of the Sky guys can do similar in the next few stages, the GB Worlds allocation will go up to 7 (GB look almost certain to finish in the top 10).

Peter Kennaugh 5th on Stage 5. Will that do? An easy win for Sagan...

FJS

Another win for Sagan.

Scarponi and Nibali had a go on the final climb, but in the end a fairly big group at the finish. Feillu went very early, but Sagan is just too strong. Matthews 2, Haussler 3. Kennaugh in the top 5, outsprinting Feillu and Degenkolb...

jonginge

DeadCalm wrote:

RichN95 wrote:

Adam Blythe came 5th, which makes him the sixth British rider to get a ranking point this year. If one of the Sky guys can do similar in the next few stages, the GB Worlds allocation will go up to 7 (GB look almost certain to finish in the top 10).

Peter Kennaugh 5th on Stage 5. Will that do?

Yep! He gets a point:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_UCI_World_Tour

Pross

Why do the commentators keep suggesting stages will be suited to Kennaugh? As far as I'm aware he's not a noted sprinter and the last two stages have shown he has nowhere near the power to beat Sagan in those sorts of stages (I say this as a Kennaugh fan). It's nice to see he is getting placed but the last two days he was in a very good position in the final km but went backwards.

inkyfingers

They have obviously bought tickets on the Kennaugh hype train. Don't get me wrong, he's a promising rider and i'd love to see him do well but I just don't see why people are coming out and saying that he's going to be a future TdF winner. when he's so young and frankly hasn't proved himself at this level yet.

Turfle

Well he got 5th yesterday and 11th the day before, despite being a pretty awful sprinter, so it's fair to say those stages dd suit him quite well.

FJS

Today definitely the queen's stage - hills steeper and longer than previous days, and above all more of them. Extremely narrow roads. A nice group with Ulissi, Possoni, Vila and a few others ahead with 68 km to go. A bit early for one of the pre-race favorites Ulissi?

DeadCalm

Nice attack by Dan Martin. But too far out to survive?

FJS

Martin caught back - now Rutkiewicz attacking in the descent, taking loads of risks on tiny narrow roads, getting a good gap

DeadCalm

This is pretty good.

DeadCalm

Nice move Sky. Who is it?

DeadCalm

Sagan has blown.

DeadCalm

Oh welll done Dan Martin. Has he got yellow?

Yes, by three seconds.