Tour de Pologne: Ackermann wins opening stage

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A superb mid-season for Pascal Ackermann (Bora-hansgrohe) showed no sign of ending on Saturday as the German sprinter notched up a narrow but clear victory in the flat opening stage of the Tour de Pologne.

Still only 24, Ackermann fended off another up-and-coming fast man, Alvaro Hodeg (Quick-Step Floors) by less than a wheel's width on the broad, lengthy finishing straight in Krakow. Meanwhile Matteo Trentin (Mitchelton-Scott) took another big step on his comeback path after his major crash and injuries in Paris-Roubaix to claim third.

For Ackermann, victory in the Tour de Pologne's opening stage came just six days after winning the RideLondon-Surrey Classic, and before that this season the Bora-Hansgrohe rider has captured the German National Road Race title and stages in the Criterium du Dauphine and Tour de Romandie. For Bora-Hansgrohe, this is their second successive opening win in Pologne in a row after Peter Sagan captured the win on exactly the same finishing straight last year.

"It was a harder stage than expected, always up and down, but the team did a perfect job bringing me safely throughout the day," Ackermann said.

"Then there was a hectic finale, and I could feel Hodeg getting closer, but I saw the finish line was close enough and it was OK."

The Tour de Pologne bunch rolled out from the central town square in Krakow in the late afternoon in blazing sunshine, for a 133 kilometre circular course largely on rolling rural roads, but starting and finishing in Poland's former capital city.

A break of four went clear almost as soon as the bunch reached the end of the lengthy neutralised section, including experienced breakaway specialist Alessandro De Marchi (BMC Racing Team), along with local riders Michal Paluta (CCC Sprandi Polkowice) and Michal Podlaski (Reprezentacija Polski), as well as Stephane Rossetto, a Frenchman with Cofidis.

After a fast but largely uneventful stage, Rossetto was the last of the quartet to be reeled in, breaking away from the trio on the rolling sunlit roads in the last 17 kilometres as the skyline of Krakow loomed in the distance once more.

The Cofidis racer made it across the line for the first of three four-kilometre laps that concluded the stage with a 20 second advantage, but his chances of staying away were fast evaporating in the intense evening heat and 10 kilometres from the line, the combined forces of UAE Team Emirates and Lotto-Soudal ended his bid off the front.

Sylvain Dillier (AG2R La Mondiale) loped away briefly in a bid for lone glory but Bora-Hansgrohe and LottoNL-Jumbo were having none of it, and as the bunch angled round the last left hand corner with around 900 metres to go, it was clear that only a sprint could decide the stage.

Ackermann's jump "surprised me and I needed to react, but it was a bit late," Hodeg later told Cyclingnews. But although the young Colombian tried to close in on the German, Ackermann gauged his power perfectly to cross the fast-approaching line as a clear winner - and become the 2018 Tour de Pologne's first leader in the process.

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