Tour of Poland 2017 – Stage 2 [FULL STAGE]

July 30, 2017

Tour de Pologne 2017 – Stage 2 – Tarnowskie Gory – Katowice : 142 km

The 2017 Tour de Pologne is a road cycling stage race that is taking place between 29 July and 4 August in Poland. It is the 74th edition of the Tour de Pologne and is the twenty-seventh event of the 2017 UCI World Tour.

The 900-metre downhill finish in Katowice in the Tour de Pologne is one of the fastest and most unusual finales on the WorldTour calendar, and it was Sacha Modolo (UAE Team Emirates) who emerged from a hotly-disputed bunch sprint to take victory on stage 2 on Sunday.

A regular part of the Tour de Pologne route, Katowice’s broad, fast, runway-like downhill finishing straight, has only been won once by a non-sprinter in the last eight editions, when Taylor Phinney triumphed back in 2013. But on this occasion, as Katusha-Alpecin and Team Sky reeled in late attacker Petr Vakoc (Quick-Step Floors) on the final corner, there was little possibility of anything but an extremely high speed charge for the line deciding the stage.

Modolo launched what he later called a classic but late sprint, in which the added downhill speed was offset a little by the stiff headwind, pulling hard out of a little knot of riders on the right hand side of the peloton with some 150 metres to go.

As a wave of eight or nine sprinters, divided by relatively little thanks to the speed of the descent, approached the finish line spread across the road, Peter Sagan (Bora-Hansgrohe) seemed too far back and was blocked in. Modolo faced late threats from Danny van Poppel (Sky), third on stage one, on his left, with the Dutchman’s sibling and fellow sprinter Boy van Poppel (Trek-Segafredo) closing fast on Modolo’s right. A well-timed lunge for the line gave the 30-year-old Modolo the victor, while Danny van Poppel took second and had the consolation prize of taking over in the leader’s jersey from Sagan.

“There was a strong headwind so I had to wait for a while to make a move, but my teammate Roberto Ferrari was really good at leading me out and then I could go for it,” said Modolo, whose previous best placing in the Tour de Pologne was in his race debut back in 2012, when he placed third behind Zdenek Stybar on a stage. “I might not have been among the top favourites here, but sometimes I can carve out a win for myself.”

Although the stage finale was a dramatic one, the preceding 140 kilometres on another short, fast stage across southern Poland from the pretty little town of Tarnowskie Gori to the much bigger conurbation of Katowice had big crowds and plenty of support for the peloton, but regrettably little in the way of excitement.

Once again, and in a very similar fashion to the Tour de France, the first attack of the day managed to stick, with Martijn Keizer (LottoNL-Jumbo), also an attacker on stage one at Pologne, back off the front again in a breakaway of four riders. Quite apart from the numbers in the break, Keizer could be forgiven for thinking he was having a case of deja vu given the three other teams also represented were identical to stage one. Joonas Henttala was on hand for Novo Nordisk, CCC-Sprandi Polowice were represented by Adrian Kurek and Kamil Gradek was there for the Polish national team.

Reigning Polish national champion Kurek lasted the longest, holding a 1:30 advantage when he crossed the finish line with 51 kilometres to go but finally throwing in the towel 23 kilometres from the finish. Daniel Oss (BMC Racing) subsequently put in a lengthy dig and there were much briefer efforts to go clear from Bob Jungels (Quick Step Floor), Nathan Haas (Dimension Data) and finally Vakoc. But although Vakoc timed his move smartly to go clear just before the peloton started the brief, draggy climb that led onto the much faster descent back to the finish, Katowice was the second and last opportunity for the sprinters before the race heads into much hillier terrain on Monday, and there was no way they were going to miss it.

Results :
1 Sacha Modolo (Ita) UAE-Emirates 3:15:21
2 Danny van Poppel (Ned) Team Sky
3 Maximilian Walscheid (Ger) Team Sunweb
4 Boy van Poppel (Ned) Trek-Segafredo
5 Youcef Reguigui (Alg) Dimension Data
6 Tom Van Asbroeck (Ned) Cannondale-Drapac
7 Niccolo Bonifazio (Ita) Bahrain-Merida
8 Peter Sagan (Svk) Bora-Hansgrohe
9 Riccardo Minali (Ita) Astana Pro Team
10 Nathan Haas (Aus) Dimension Data
11 Enrico Battaglin (Ita) Team LottoNL-Jumbo
12 Lorenzo Manzin (Fra) FDJ
13 Floris Gerts (Ned) BMC Racing Team
14 Alexander Porsev (Rus) Gazprom-Rusvelo
15 Jens Debusschere (Bel) Lotto Soudal
16 Tomasz Marczynski (Pol) Lotto Soudal
17 Erik Baska (Svk) Bora-Hansgrohe
18 Davide Martinelli (Ita) Quick-Step Floors
19 Matej Mohoric (Slo) UAE-Emirates
20 Roberto Ferrari (Ita) UAE-Emirates
21 Caleb Ewan (Aus) Orica-Scott
22 Kristian Sbaragli (Ita) Dimension Data
23 Ivan Rovny (Rus) Gazprom-Rusvelo
24 Maciej Paterski (Pol) CCC Sprandi Polkowice
25 Charles Planet (Fra) Team Novo Nordisk
26 Dayer Uberney Quintana Royas (Col) Movistar Team
27 Roman Maikin (Rus) Gazprom-Rusvelo
28 Wout Poels (Ned) Team Sky
29 Nelson Oliveira (Por) Movistar Team
30 Sam Oomen (Ned) Team Sunweb
31 Lukasz Wisniowski (Pol) Team Sky
32 Domenico Pozzovivo (Ita) AG2R La Mondiale
33 Rui Alberto Faria Da Costa (Por) UAE-Emirates
34 Jesus Hernandez (Spa) Trek-Segafredo
35 Francois Bidard (Fra) AG2R La Mondiale
36 Vincenzo Nibali (Ita) Bahrain-Merida
37 Jack Haig (Aus) Orica-Scott
38 Rafael Valls (Spa) Lotto Soudal
39 Bob Jungels (Lux) Quick-Step Floors
40 Bert De Backer (Bel) Team Sunweb
41 Luis Leon Sanchez Gil (Spa) Astana Pro Team
42 Rafal Majka (Pol) Bora-Hansgrohe
43 Simon Spilak (Slo) Katusha-Alpecin
44 Ben Hermans (Bel) BMC Racing Team
45 Diego Rosa (Ita) Team Sky
46 Jose Goncalves (Por) Katusha-Alpecin
47 Laurens De Plus (Bel) Quick-Step Floors
48 Salvatore Puccio (Ita) Team Sky
49 Daan Olivier (Ned) Team LottoNL-Jumbo
50 Ben O’connor (USA) Dimension Data
51 Jan Hirt (Cze) CCC Sprandi Polkowice
52 Gregor Muhlberger (Aus) Bora-Hansgrohe
53 Jose Joaquin Rojas (Spa) Movistar Team
54 Frantisek Sirs (Cze) CCC Sprandi Polkowice
55 Adam Yates (GBr) Orica-Scott
56 Petr Vakoc (Cze) Quick-Step Floors
57 Bart De Clercq (Bel) Lotto Soudal
58 Ruslan Tleubayev (Kaz) Astana Pro Team
59 Tom Slagter (Ned) Cannondale-Drapac
60 Gorka Izaguirre (Spa) Movistar Team
61 Michal Golas (Pol) Team Sky
62 Antwan Tolhoek (Ned) Team LottoNL-Jumbo
63 Aleksei Tcatevich (Rus) Gazprom-Rusvelo
64 Maxime Monfort (Bel) Lotto Soudal
65 Wilco Kelderman (Ned) Team Sunweb
66 Ilnur Zakarin (Rus) Katusha-Alpecin
67 Koen Bouwman (Ned) Team LottoNL-Jumbo
68 Pavel Kochetkov (Rus) Katusha-Alpecin
69 Sergey Lagutin (Rus) Gazprom-Rusvelo
70 Pawel Cieslik (Pol) Poland
71 Davide Villella (Ita) Cannondale-Drapac
72 Remi Cavagna (Fra) Quick-Step Floors
73 Maximilian Schachmann (Ger) Quick-Step Floors
74 Dylan Teuns (Bel) BMC Racing Team
75 Matteo Montaguti (Ita) AG2R La Mondiale
76 Winner Andrew Anacona (Col) Movistar Team
77 Lennard Kamna (Ger) Team Sunweb
78 Javier Megias (Spa) Team Novo Nordisk
79 Marek Rutkiewicz (Pol) Poland
80 Pawel Franczak (Pol) Poland
81 Floris De Tier (Bel) Team LottoNL-Jumbo
82 Kristijan Koren (Slo) Cannondale-Drapac
83 Valerio Conti (Ita) UAE-Emirates
84 Tejay Van Garderen (USA) BMC Racing Team
85 Toms Skujins (Lat) Cannondale-Drapac
86 Jelle Wallays (Bel) Lotto Soudal
87 Matti Breschel (Den) Astana Pro Team
88 Manuele Boaro (Ita) Bahrain-Merida
89 Emanuel Piaskowy (Pol) Poland
90 Fumiyuki Beppu (Jpn) Trek-Segafredo
91 Rory Sutherland (USA) Movistar Team
92 Joe Dombrowski (USA) Cannondale-Drapac
93 Giovanni Visconti (Ita) Bahrain-Merida
94 Odd Christian Eiking (Nor) FDJ
95 Oskar Gatto (Ita) Astana Pro Team
96 Natnael Berhane (Eri) Dimension Data
97 Kamil Gradek (Pol) Poland
98 Rohan Dennis (Aus) BMC Racing Team
99 Jeremy Maison (Fra) FDJ
100 Julien Bernard (Fra) Trek-Segafredo
101 Alberto Losada (Spa) Katusha-Alpecin
102 Samuel Sanchez (Spa) BMC Racing Team
103 Przemyslaw Niemiec (Pol) UAE-Emirates
104 Robert Power (Aus) Orica-Scott
105 Ruben Plaza Molina (Spa) Orica-Scott
106 Franco Pellizotti (Ita) Bahrain-Merida
107 Adam Stachowiak (Pol) Poland
108 Michal Schlegel (Cze) CCC Sprandi Polkowice
109 Pavel Brutt (Rus) Gazprom-Rusvelo 0:00:13
110 Matvey Mamykin (Rus) Katusha-Alpecin
111 Sander Armee (Bel) Lotto Soudal
112 Adrian Kurek (Pol) CCC Sprandi Polkowice 0:00:30
113 Sebastien Reichenbach (Swi) FDJ
114 David Lonzano Riba (Spa) Team Novo Nordisk
115 Bert-Jan Lindeman (Ned) Team LottoNL-Jumbo 0:00:56
116 Daniil Frominykh (Ukr) Astana Pro Team 0:00:57
117 Hubert Dupont (Fra) AG2R La Mondiale 0:00:59
118 Nico Denz (Ger) AG2R La Mondiale 0:01:02
119 Joonas Henttala (Fin) Team Novo Nordisk
120 Martijn Keizer (Ned) Team LottoNL-Jumbo 0:01:06
121 Jan Tratnik (Slo) CCC Sprandi Polkowice
122 Domen Novak (Slo) Bahrain-Merida
123 Daniel Hoelgaard (Nor) FDJ 0:01:10
124 Chad Haga (USA) Team Sunweb 0:01:24
125 Nick Dougall (RSA) Dimension Data
126 Johannes Frohlinger (Ger) Team Sunweb 0:01:32
127 Luka Mezgec (Slo) Orica-Scott 0:01:37
128 Martijn Verschoor (Ned) Team Novo Nordisk 0:01:41
129 Maxim Belkov (Rus) Katusha-Alpecin
130 Niki Terpstra (Ned) Quick-Step Floors
131 Cesare Benedetti (Ita) Bora-Hansgrohe
132 Patrick Konrad (Aut) Bora-Hansgrohe 0:01:45
133 Alan Banaszek (Pol) CCC Sprandi Polkowice 0:01:57
134 Moreno Moser (Ita) Astana Pro Team 0:02:12
135 Tyler Farrar (USA) Dimension Data
136 Evgeny Shalunov (Rus) Gazprom-Rusvelo
137 Kevin Reza (Fra) FDJ 0:02:19
138 Gregory Daniel (USA) Trek-Segafredo 0:02:37
139 Antonio Nibali (Ita) Bahrain-Merida
140 Ian Boswell (USA) Team Sky 0:02:57
141 Christophe Riblon (Fra) AG2R La Mondiale
142 Christopher Williams (Aus) Team Novo Nordisk
143 Marc Fournier (Fra) FDJ
144 Alex Dowsett (GBr) Movistar Team 0:03:36
145 Daniel Oss (Ita) BMC Racing Team
146 Marco Coledan (Ita) Trek-Segafredo 0:04:54
147 Anass Ait El Abdia (Mar) UAE-Emirates 0:04:55
148 Aleksejs Saramotins (Lat) Bora-Hansgrohe 0:05:29
149 Sondre Enger (Nor) AG2R La Mondiale
150 Pawel Bernas (Pol) Poland 0:08:04
151 Andrea Peron (Ita) Team Novo Nordisk 0:08:44
152 Sam Bewley (NZl) Orica-Scott 0:08:49

General Classification after Stage 2 :
1 Danny Van Poppel (Ned) Team Sky 6:11:27
2 Peter Sagan (Svk) Bora-Hansgrohe
3 Sacha Modolo (Ita) UAE-Emirates
4 Caleb Ewan (Aus) Orica-Scott 0:00:04
5 Maximilian Walscheid (Ger) Team Sunweb 0:00:06
6 Kamil Gradek (Pol) Poland 0:00:07
7 Nathan Haas (Aus) Dimension Data 0:00:09
8 Wout Poels (Ned) Team Sky
9 Nicollo Bonifazio (Ita) Bahrain-Merida 0:00:10
10 Boy Van Poppel (Ned) Trek-Segafredo
11 Riccardo Minali (Ita) Astana Pro Team
12 Tom Van Asbroeck (Ned) Cannondale-Drapac
13 Youcef Reguigui (Alg) Dimension Data
14 Jens Debusschere (Bel) Lotto Soudal
15 Roberto Ferrari (Ita) UAE-Emirates
16 Floris Gerts (Ned) BMC Racing Team
17 Alexander Porsev (Rus) Gazprom-Rusvelo
18 Roman Maikin (Rus) Gazprom-Rusvelo
19 Ivan Rovny (Rus) Gazprom-Rusvelo
20 Tomasz Marczynski (Pol) Lotto Soudal
21 Nelson Oliveira (Por) Movistar Team
22 Sam Oomen (Ned) Team Sunweb
23 Davide Martinelli (Ita) Quick-Step Floors
24 Dayer Uberney Quintana Royas (Col) Movistar Team
25 Rui Alberto Faria Da Costa (Por) UAE-Emirates
26 Francois Bidard (Fra) AG2R La Mondiale
27 Luis Leon Sanchez Gil (Spa) Astana Pro Team
28 Jose Goncalves (Por) Katusha-Alpecin
29 Ben Hermans (Bel) BMC Racing Team
30 Rafael Valls (Spa) Lotto Soudal
31 Jack Haig (Aus) Orica-Scott
32 Matej Mohoric (Slo) UAE-Emirates
33 Koen Bouwman (Ned) Team LottoNL-Jumbo
34 Jose Joaquin Rojas (Spa) Movistar Team
35 Aleksei Tcatevich (Rus) Gazprom-Rusvelo
36 Salvatore Puccio (Ita) Team Sky
37 Pawel Franczak (Pol) Poland
38 Gregor Muhlberger (Aus) Bora-Hansgrohe
39 Ben O’connor (USA) Dimension Data
40 Laurens De Plus (Bel) Quick-Step Floors
41 Jan Hirt (Cze) CCC Sprandi Polkowice
42 Bart De Clercq (Bel) Lotto Soudal
43 Petr Vakoc (Cze) Quick-Step Floors
44 Vincenzo Nibali (Ita) Bahrain-Merida
45 Simon Spilak (Slo) Katusha-Alpecin
46 Remi Cavagna (Fra) Quick-Step Floors
47 Daan Olivier (Ned) Team LottoNL-Jumbo
48 Wilco Kelderman (Ned) Team Sunweb
49 Winner Andrew Anacona (Col) Movistar Team
50 Dylan Teuns (Bel) BMC Racing Team
51 Domenico Pozzovivo (Ita) AG2R La Mondiale
52 Michal Golas (Pol) Team Sky
53 Antwan Tolhoek (Ned) Team LottoNL-Jumbo
54 Sergey Lagutin (Rus) Gazprom-Rusvelo
55 Tejay Van Garderen (USA) BMC Racing Team
56 Ilnur Zakarin (Rus) Katusha-Alpecin
57 Pawel Cieslik (Pol) Poland
58 Adam Yates (GBr) Orica-Scott
59 Jesus Hernandez (Spa) Trek-Segafredo
60 Pavel Kochetkov (Rus) Katusha-Alpecin
61 Davide Villella (Ita) Cannondale-Drapac
62 Floris De Tier (Bel) Team LottoNL-Jumbo
63 Gorka Izaguirre (Spa) Movistar Team
64 Tom Slagter (Ned) Cannondale-Drapac
65 Maxime Monfort (Bel) Lotto Soudal
66 Matti Breschel (Den) Astana Pro Team
67 Bert De Backer (Bel) Team Sunweb
68 Rafal Majka (Pol) Bora-Hansgrohe
69 Frantisek Sirs (Cze) CCC Sprandi Polkowice
70 Matteo Montaguti (Ita) AG2R La Mondiale
71 Kristijan Koren (Slo) Cannondale-Drapac
72 Erik Baska (Svk) Bora-Hansgrohe
73 Bob Jungels (Lux) Quick-Step Floors
74 Maximilian Schachmann (Ger) Quick-Step Floors
75 Giovanni Visconti (Ita) Bahrain-Merida
76 Diego Rosa (Ita) Team Sky
77 Michal Schlegel (Cze) CCC Sprandi Polkowice
78 Toms Skujins (Lat) Cannondale-Drapac
79 Joe Dombrowski (USA) Cannondale-Drapac
80 Kristian Sbaragli (Ita) Dimension Data
81 Alberto Losada (Spa) Katusha-Alpecin
82 Javier Megias (Spa) Team Novo Nordisk
83 Lukasz Wisniowski (Pol) Team Sky
84 Lennard Kamna (Ger) Team Sunweb
85 Samuel Sanchez (Spa) BMC Racing Team
86 Odd Christian Eiking (Nor) FDJ
87 Valerio Conti (Ita) UAE-Emirates
88 Natnael Berhane (Eri) Dimension Data
89 Ruslan Tleubayev (Kaz) Astana Pro Team
90 Przemyslaw Niemiec (Pol) UAE-Emirates
91 Adam Stachowiak (Pol) Poland
92 Robert Power (Aus) Orica-Scott
93 Rohan Dennis (Aus) BMC Racing Team
94 Jeremy Maison (Fra) FDJ
95 Manuele Boaro (Ita) Bahrain-Merida
96 Julien Bernard (Fra) Trek-Segafredo
97 Rory Sutherland (USA) Movistar Team
98 Emanuel Piaskowy (Pol) Poland
99 Fumiyuki Beppu (Jpn) Trek-Segafredo
100 Marek Rutkiewicz (Pol) Poland
101 Ruben Plaza Molina (Spa) Orica-Scott
102 Oskar Gatto (Ita) Astana Pro Team
103 Franco Pellizotti (Ita) Bahrain-Merida
104 Pavel Brutt (Rus) Gazprom-Rusvelo 0:00:23
105 Sander Armee (Bel) Lotto Soudal
106 Matvey Mamykin (Rus) Katusha-Alpecin
107 Adrian Kurek (Pol) CCC Sprandi Polkowice 0:00:31
108 David Lonzano Riba (Spa) Team Novo Nordisk 0:00:40
109 Sebastien Reichenbach (Swi) FDJ
110 Bert-Jan Lindeman (Ned) Team LottoNL-Jumbo 0:01:06
111 Daniil Frominykh (Ukr) Astana Pro Team 0:01:07
112 Hubert Dupont (Fra) AG2R La Mondiale 0:01:09
113 Joonas Henttala (Fin) Team Novo Nordisk 0:01:10
114 Nico Denz (Ger) AG2R La Mondiale 0:01:12
115 Domen Novak (Slo) Bahrain-Merida 0:01:16
116 Jan Tratnik (Slo) CCC Sprandi Polkowice
117 Daniel Hoelgaard (Nor) FDJ 0:01:20
118 Chad Haga (USA) Team Sunweb 0:01:34
119 Nick Dougall (RSA) Dimension Data
120 Jelle Wallays (Bel) Lotto Soudal 0:01:41
121 Johannes Frohlinger (Ger) Team Sunweb 0:01:42
122 Niki Terpstra (Ned) Quick-Step Floors 0:01:51
123 Maxim Belkov (Rus) Katusha-Alpecin
124 Martijn Verschoor (Ned) Team Novo Nordisk
125 Cesare Benedetti (Ita) Bora-Hansgrohe
126 Patrick Konrad (Aut) Bora-Hansgrohe 0:01:55
127 Alan Banaszek (Pol) CCC Sprandi Polkowice 0:02:07
128 Moreno Moser (Ita) Astana Pro Team 0:02:22
129 Tyler Farrar (USA) Dimension Data
130 Kevin Reza (Fra) FDJ 0:02:29
131 Antonio Nibali (Ita) Bahrain-Merida 0:02:47
132 Gregory Daniel (USA) Trek-Segafredo
133 Luka Mezgec (Slo) Orica-Scott 0:02:56
134 Marc Fournier (Fra) FDJ 0:03:07
135 Christophe Riblon (Fra) AG2R La Mondiale
136 Evgeny Shalunov (Rus) Gazprom-Rusvelo 0:03:22
137 Alex Dowsett (GBr) Movistar Team 0:03:46
138 Enrico Battaglin (Ita) Team LottoNL-Jumbo 0:04:49
139 Marco Coledan (Ita) Trek-Segafredo 0:05:04
140 Anass Ait El Abdia (Mar) UAE-Emirates 0:05:05
141 Lorenzo Manzin (Fra) FDJ 0:05:07
142 Daniel Oss (Ita) BMC Racing Team 0:05:16
143 Maciej Paterski (Pol) CCC Sprandi Polkowice 0:05:31
144 Ian Boswell (USA) Team Sky
145 Christopher Williams (Aus) Team Novo Nordisk
146 Charles Planet (Fra) Team Novo Nordisk 0:05:33
147 Sondre Enger (Nor) AG2R La Mondiale 0:05:39
148 Martijn Keizer (Ned) Team LottoNL-Jumbo 0:06:33
149 Andrea Peron (Ita) Team Novo Nordisk 0:08:54
150 Aleksejs Saramotins (Lat) Bora-Hansgrohe 0:10:36
151 Sam Bewley (NZl) Orica-Scott 0:11:23
152 Pawel Bernas (Pol) Poland 0:13:38