Tour de Pologne: Richard Carapaz takes surprise win on stage 3

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Richard Carapaz claimed his first victory for his new team Ineos on an uphill sprint finish on stage 3 of the Tour de Pologne.

The Ecuadorian rider surprised the competition with a 350-meter sprint to hold off Diego Ulissi (UAE Team Emirates) and Rudy Molard (Groupama-FDJ).

The race entered hilly terrain on day three of racing in Poland and headed to Bielsko-Biała, cresting seven categorized climbs and tackling three 7km laps in the final.

The route proved too hard for the race leader Mads Pedersen (Trek-Segafredo). The world champion made an effort to rejoin the peloton as Deceuninck-Quick-Step drove the pace in the final 20 kilometres but did not feature in the uphill battle on the final lap. With 10 bonus seconds gained on the line, Carapaz took the race lead ahead of Ulissi, with Kamil Małecki (CCC Team) in third.

"I am very happy. We did a good race today as a team, and winning this way in a sprint was really good," Carapaz said.

"It was very nervous in the last few laps of the circuit, but the guys put me in a really good position in the last corner. They did a fantastic job."

Ulissi looked in a good position to take his first victory in over a year but vowed to try again on stage 4, which takes on another, harder uphill finish in Bukovina.

"My condition is good even though we are in the first races after the long layoff, which is pleasing as it means a lot of good work has been done," Ulissi said. "I hope to win soon. It was a nervous stage and it was hard. In this kind of finish I usually go well and I think I did a really good sprint. Tomorrow is another hard stage, so I hope to recover well and give it another go."

How it unfolded

A more demanding, 203.1km stage was on the menu on the third day of racing in Poland as the peloton took to Wadowice. Starting in the hometown of pope John Paul II, riders were looking at two different loops around Bielsko-Biała, both tackled twice. The narrow road climbed up the Kocierz (3.7km, 6.3%) and Wielka Puszcza (1.3km, 5.6%) climbs on the first loop and a steeper ascent up to Przegibek (6.6km, 4.9%) awaited on the second one. With only three 7km laps in the final, the first shake-up of the general classification was expected on a final 2.5km long climb averaging 4 per cent.

Once again the Polish riders animated the early moves with Kamil Gradek (CCC Team) and Patryk Stosz (Polish National Team) joining forces with Quentin Jauregui (AG2R La Mondiale) and Taco van der Hoorn (Jumbo-Visma) to build a gap of four minutes.

A counter-attack from Thomas De Gendt (Lotto Soudal) on the second categorized climb of the day got Jakob Fuglsang’s attention, with Maciej Bodnar (Bora-Hansgrohe) and Jonas Rutsch (EF Pro Cycling) joining in. The quartet didn’t manage to make it across to the leaders and was brought back into the pack after Fuglsang abandoned the move.

The leaders held the gap at 3 minutes at the halfway point as Stosz and Gradek battled for the mountains classification lead. Stosz won maximum points at the second passage atop Wielka Puszcza, while Gradek was first on the second climb of Kocierz. Stosz again charged for more points as the group exited the first loop through Wielka Puszcza.

Deceuninck-Quickstep took charge of pacemaking and had no trouble bringing back a solo move from Laurens De Vreese (Astana), who tried his luck on the climb. As the leaders approached the second loop, Jauregui was dropped, and Stosz once again showed climbing prowess on narrow and steep road up Przegibek.

With 80 kilometres remaining the gap came held at 2:20 and the breakaway riders shared the intermediate finishes bonuses between themselves. Van den Hoorn subsequently proved to be the strongest of the trio on the second ascent at Przegibek and outpaced Gradek as Stosz slowly faded.

The peloton was closing in on a climb and Tomasz Marczyński (Lotto Soudal) attacked with 41km to go, encouraging others to pick up the pace. Soon Van der Hoorn was the only rider left, holding a 40 second gap on the descent towards Bielsko-Biała. The Dutchman defended his lead for a while but the wide and straight roads leading to city centre allowed Evenepoel & Co. to bring him back with 28 kilometres remaining.

As the bunch entered local laps, Nathan Haas (Cofidis) launched an offensive, gaining 45 seconds at the beginning of the first of three local laps. The Australian held off the chasers for one lap but faded as Florian Senechal, Davide Ballerini and Remco Evenepoel drove the reduced bunch to the final 7 kilometres.

The Belgian team had a Bora-Hansgrohe trio on their tails with Rafał Majka and Patrick Konrad setting things up for Maximilian Schachmann. Among the sprinters surviving the heat and the climb were John Degenkolb (Trek-Segafredo) and Luka Mezgec (Mitchelton-Scott), while Team Ineos waited until final 4 kilometres to throw in their hat to the ring.

A 40-man strong group headed to the finish line and while things were looking good for Diego Ulissi, it was Richard Carapaz who began his effort with 350 meters to go. The Ecuadorian took all the fast men by surprise and as Ulissi and Mezgec launched a desperate attempt to counter in the final 100 meters, the Giro d’Italia winner once again proved that short uphill drags to the line are well-suited to his characteristics.