Tour de Pologne: Double win for Hodeg in Zabrze

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Double stage runner-up Alvaro Hodeg (Quick-Step Floors) made it third time lucky in the Tour de Pologne on Monday when the Clombian narrowly captured a bunch sprint win on stage 3 ahead of Daniel McLay (Team EF Education First-Drapac) and André Greipel (Lotto-Soudal).

Following teammate Julien Alaphilippe's victory on Saturday in the Clásica San Sebastián, Hodeg's win continues Quick-Step Floors staggeringly prolific run of success in 2018, with 53 UCI-classified victories - the most ever at this point in a season for the 16-year-old Belgian team - to date.

Whilst top favourite Pascal Ackermann (Bora-Hansgrohe) was unable to go for a hat-trick of stage wins in Pologne on Monday - the German national champion was blocked in against the right hand barriers with 300 metres to go on the left-hand side of the road - Hodeg received a faultless lead-out from teammate and Danish National Champion Michael Mørkøv.

A powerful late counter-charge by McLay, Greipel and McLay's teammate Sacha Modolo came close to overtaking Hodeg. But it was too late, with the Colombian punching one arm in the air as he claimed his first win since a stage of the Volta a Catalunya this spring.

After he freewheeled to a halt, for a good half minute, Hodeg stayed slumped against the barriers, his helmet in one hand and seemingly unable to take in that he had finally conquered the stage win - and taken the race lead to boot.

"I was feeling very low after two second places and I really wanted this win today," the Colombian said, "I'm just over the moon it's finally arrived, and it's all thanks to my team, they did a brilliant job."

The early part of the stage played out in almost identical fashion to stages 1 and 2, with the only difference the names of the clutch of early breakaways doomed to fail thanks to the sprinters' teams. This time, Matias le Turnier (Cofidis), Michal Paluta (CCC-Sprandi Polkowice), Alexander Foliforov (Gasprom-Rusvelo) and Jenthe Biernmans (Katusha-Alpecin) gained around four minutes after 30 kilometres, before Bora-Hansgrohe, courtesy (once again) largely of Cesare Benedetti, began the slow but relentless process of reeling the quartet in.

The four had a little under a minute in hand as they sped past the finish line in the shadow of the Zabrze stadium for the first time. Ahead were four circuits of a largely flat finishing circuit of the kind so beloved of Pologne's organisers, 6.2 kilometres in length, featuring chunks of motorway and no way as technically challenging as the labyrinthine urban circuit the Pologne peloton had tackled through Katowice 24 hours before.

Sky and Groupama-FDJ began moving up as well, and with less than two laps to go, as the peloton hit speeds of up to 60kph on the broad motorway behind Zabrze stadium, it was all over for the foursome.

Bora powered to the front as a notable statement of intent with five kilometres to go, but they were comfortably matched by CCC-Sprandi's line on the far side of the motorway. A further delegation of Mitchelton-Scott then took over at the head of affairs, followed by LottoNL-Jumbo.

After a hard swing left onto the broad 900 metre-long finishing straight, Ackermann began his sprint from a little too far back and found himself blocked in near the barriers. But Hodeg was able to power away behind Mørkøv on the far side, and by the time the Danish rider swung off, despite the ferocious counter-charge by the EF-Drapac duo and Greipel, such was the Quick Step duo's advantage that the Colombian's victory was a virtual certainty.

After a generous triple helping of sprint stages, the Tour de Pologne changes its profile radically on Tuesday when it heads south into the Carpathian and Beskid mountains. Anything between 2,000 and 2,800 metres of vertical climbing each stage will make each remaining day of the week-long race a potential battle between the GC stars, starting with stage 4's short but punchy ascent to Scyrzk.

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