From the 4th to 10th of August the World Tour calendar continues with it’s first post-Tour de France stage-race: the Tour de Pologne. This week-long race in Poland is always packed with opportunities for the sprinters, classics riders and time-trialists. We preview stage 2.
The second stage of the race will already be an important one for the overall classification as the riders go into the hills, starting and finishing off the day in Karpacz. A regular finale, however a shorter summit finish this time around, less well suited to the climbers.
Right at the start of the day there is some climbing, and then all over the stage there will be a few ascents scattered around. However all of the attention will be in the arrival which is a climb consisting of two sections. The first leads up to an intermediate sprint where the peloton finds a few kilometers at around 5%.
There is a small downhill section and then the final 3 kilometers average at 6.7%. It’s not an ascent that is difficult enough to create serious differences and a sprint finish is likely, but there will be gaps and bonifications at play and of course, a first GC leader out of those who are fighting for the overall classification.
Stage 2: Karpacz – Karpacz, 148.3 kilometers
Although short, this will be an important stage for the overall classification as we will discover who the men with the best form are. But it’s not a stage for big differences, we should have a sprint between those who survive the climbing to decide the stage and in Jan Christen and Maxim van Gils we will have the two main favourites.
Prediction Tour de Pologne 2025 stage 2:
*** Jan Christen, Maxim van Gils
** Mathias Vacek, Diego Ulissi, Max Poole
* Matthew Brennan, Brandon McNulty, Finn Fisher-Black, Edoardo Zambanini, Andrea Bagioli, Antonio Tiberi, Michal Kwiatkowski, Pello Bilbao
Pick: Jan Christen
How: Reduced group sprint.
Original: Rúben Silva