Voigt wins Tour of Poland

Eurosport - Sun, 21 Sep 09:04:00 2008

German Jens Voigt won the seven-day Tour of Poland that ended in Krakow.

CYCLING 2008 Deutschland-Tour EZF Brême CSC Jens Voigt - 0

Dane Lars Bak was second overall one minute 22 seconds behind with Italy's Franco Pellizotti third at 1:24. Australia's Allan Davis was fourth at 1:27.

CSC rider Voigt, 37, won stage six to Zakopane on Friday with a lone attack and defended his lead with the help of his team mates during the rain-soaked final stage.

German Robert Forster of the Gerolsteiner team won the 153-kilometre final stage from Rabka to Krakow, beating Alberto Curtolo of Italy and Yauheni Hutarovich of Belarus in a sprint finish.

The Tour of Poland is Voigt's 86th victory of his 14-year professional career.

This year, Voigt won the Criterium International stage race for the fourth time and a Giro d'Italia stage.

Voigt had already announced that the Tour of Poland would be his last race of the 2008 season and so he will miss the world road race championships in Varese, Italy.

STAGE SIX

Team CSC's Jens Voigt snatched the yellow jersey ahead of team-mate Lars Bak after winning a shortened stage six with one of his trademark solo attacks.

The stage was originally scheduled to be 201.7 kilometres long with five mountain passes but extreme weather conditions forced organisers to reduce it to just 118km.

Seven riders broke away early in the mountains, and held a two minute advantage with 45km remaining. But the German decided to make his move on the hilliest section of the course and passed the lead group one by one until he held took the front, having caught the final leader Tony Martin 20km out.

The peloton was unable to sustain any kind of challenge and Voight eventually crossed the line unchallenged to hold a one minute 22second lead over Bak, with overnight leader Jose Jaoquin Rojas fading badly before finishing more than five minutes off the pace.

Saturday's final stage is 153.6km from Rabki to Krakow.

STAGE FIVE

Belgian national road race champion Jurgen Roelandts won the fifth stage of the Tour of Poland from Naleczow to Rzeszow.

The 23-year-old Silence-Lotto rider beat Spain's Jose Joaquin Rojas Gil and Steven De Jongh of the Netherlands in a rain-soaked sprint finish among a leading group of 12 riders.

It was Roelandts' second victory in his first season as a professional after taking the Belgian road race title in June.

Australia's Allan Davis finished in the main peloton, 12 seconds behind Roelandts, losing the overall lead to Rojas Gil.

Denmark's Lars Ytting Bak is now in second place two seconds behind and De Jongh is third at five seconds. Davis slipped to fourth overall at seven seconds.

Following a protest by riders about bad weather and unsafe riding conditions on Wednesday, race organisers cut two 5.9km finishing circuits from the end of the stage.

Friday's 201.7km sixth stage runs from Krynica Zdroj to Zakopane.

STAGE FOUR

Heavy rains over Lublin forced organisers to stop the fourth stage of the Tour of Poland with only 10 km left to the finishing line in the town.

Organisers decided not to issue standings for the stage, leaving Australian Allan Davis as the Tour's leader with three days remaining in the race.

The Quick Step sprinter retained his four seconds lead over Brazil's Murilo Fischer with Denmark's Lars Bak in third place, seven seconds adrift.

The bunch had reached the final circuit of the 243.6 km stage when the storm made it impossible to complete the last of the three laps in the streets of Lublin.

Riders complained about the conditions, claiming it was unsafe to ride, leading the organisers to end the stage.

Thursday's 5th stage is 239.7km from Nareslow and Rzeszow.

STAGE THREE

Australia's Allan Davis seized the Tour of Poland lead when he finished third in the 184.8km third stage between Mikolajki and Bialystok.

The Quick Step sprinter, who won the previous stage, finished behind Italian Angelo Furlan and Brazil's Luciano Pagliarini.

However, the four-second bonus awarded for third place was enough for him to oust Brazilian Murilo Fischer from the top spot.

It was Furlan's third victory of the season and his second in the Tour of Poland, in which he won a stage in 2001.

As in the previous stage, three riders tried their luck and broke early.

Much to the crowd's pleasure, the break involved two Polish riders, Marcin Sapa and Sylwester Szmyd, who joined forces with Spain's Aitor Hernandez Guttierez.

But the trio were caught 15km from the finish, shortly after the only climb of the day, leaving the sprinters to battle it out for the stage win.

Wednesday's third stage takes the riders from Bielsk Podlaski to Lublin over 243.6km.

STAGE TWO

Australian Allan Davis proved he had made the right choice by joining forces with Quick Step when he won the 231.2km second stage of the Tour of Poland between Plock and Olsztyn.

The 28-year-old, who hooked up with the Belgian team two weeks ago, broke free 300 metres from the finish line and easily outclassed his rivals.

Brazil's Murilo Fischer was second and narrowly took the overall leader's jersey away from Denmark's Lars Bak. Italy's Mirco Lorenzetto finished third.

Davis, who was third in the Vattenfall Cyclassics earlier this month, was left without a team after Discovery Channel disbanded at the end of last season.

He was forced to take part in January's Tour Down Under with an Australian squad, winning a stage, before joining low-key team Mitsubishi.

Tuesday's 184.8km third stage will be between Mikolajki and Bialystok.

STAGE ONE

Lars Bak took the yellow jersey in the Tour of Poland after his CSC squad won the opening stage team time trial.

CSC won the four kilometre time trial through the streets of Warsaw in four minutes and five seconds, while Liquigas were second, three seconds off the pace, and Caisse d'Epargne third a further four seconds back.

"We hadn't talked about it beforehand that Lars should be the first to cross, but I think everyone agrees that he deserves it after having worked so hard for a long time now," said sporting director Kim Andersen.

"He's trained really hard and done well in a number of races, so I'm really happy for him."

Danish time trial champion Bak will wear the leader's jersey at the start of the 231 km second stage from Plock to Olsztyn.

Reuters

Comment 1 - 3 of 3

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  1. big voigt , wat a legend , true consistency , always there to put the power down

    From walker575@..., on Mon 22 Sep 9:36PM
  2. Uhm. There was no storm. In fact, by the time the riders reached Lublin, it had stopped raining. It was cold and wet, but - are they men or mice? The thousands of us who turned out to watch were sorely disappointed, when (as rumor has it) the Italian riders wimped out, and encouraged the others to join them. It's sad that some of the tougher riders couldn't stand up to them, but also sad that the reporting on this race is this bad.

    From randyleone, on Wed 17 Sep 6:29PM
  3. I know the Tour de Pologne is NOT the Tour de France, but I expected to find just a little more info on the Tour here on the Eurosport webpages, if only to read the name of the towns involved which were hard to ascertain from the TV commentary. I guess I will have to look elsewhere. But at least cycling is here, even if overwhelmed by the sports with big cash and less sporting environments. So please just more detail and help us all to appreciate what cycling we can see on TV.

    From Cool_Web_man, on Tue 16 Sep 2:33PM
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