The final few kilometres in Tuesday's second stage of the Tour of Poland were very hectic, with the peloton being misdirected and having to dodge buses and even police cars. After two sharp curves in the last kilometre, they group came on to the short closing stretch.
Peter 'Paco' Wrolich of Team Gerolsteiner set up the sprint for team-mate David Kopp, who pulled away with 300 metres to take his first win of the year.
"That was perfect timing. Paco set me up perfectly," Kopp said. "The sprint was very, very long, but it worked out." The native of Cologne, Germany, said that he had noted in his fourth place finish Monday "that I could do something here."
Kopp benefited from the bad luck of his team-mate, sprinter Robert Förster. "'Frösi' crashed about 15 kilometres before the finish, and then said that the team should ride for me," Kopp noted.
"It has been a long time since my last win. I feel a lot better now, of course." It had really been a long time; Kopp's last UCI ranked win was the sixth stage of the 2006 Eneco Tour.
