João Almeida wins Tour de Pologne

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João Almeida (Deceuninck-QuickStep) won the 78th edition of the Tour de Pologne, taking his first two stage wins on the WorldTour level earlier this week and sealing the overall victory on stage 7.

Julius van den Berg (EF Education-Nippo) led the successful breakaway into Kraków, outsprinting Alexis Reynard (Israel Start-Up Nation) after a frantic chase on the local laps. Movistar Team’s Matteo Jorgenson finished third and Ineos Grenadiers’ Gianni Moscon fourth, as the group finished metres ahead of the sprinters.

“I didn’t know that the peloton was so close. We went full gas all the way, we tried to get the best out of it but I didn’t expect we’d make it. The local lap was pretty easy actually, not too many corners, so I thought the peloton would come back. Eventually, we made it," van den Berg told TVP Sport after the podium ceremony.

Van den Berg dedicated the victory to the late Bjorg Lambrecht, who died in 2019 after a crash on stage 3 of the Polish race.

“It’s a really beautiful one. The last two years in Poland were not so good. Two years ago Bjorg Lambrecht passed away, it was terrible. Last year it was my friend Fabio Jakobsen, who crashed really bad. So to be honest, I almost didn’t come here, I thought that I didn’t like it [the race]. Eventually, I thought that if you keep thinking about the bad sides, nothing good will come out of it. I proved it here. I went to Poland, I tried everything. I had these two moments in my mind the whole day. This victory is for Bjorg. It’s a beautiful day.”

Almeida, who is set to move to UAE Team Emirates next year, scored two major results in the last two seasons, finishing 4th and 6th in the last two editions of the Giro d’Italia. 

Still 23, until recently his only win in a UCI-sanctioned race was the national time trial champion’s title, earned earlier this year. This week, he launched a bold move to win stage 2 of the Polish race and then sprinted to victory on stage 4, further solidifying his lead. Only his teammate Remi Cavagna got the better of him in the previous day's time trial, which gave Deceuninck-QuickStep three stage wins and the overall success for the second time in a row.

Matej Mohoric (Bahrain Victorious) and Michał Kwiatkowski (Ineos Grenadiers) joined the young Portuguese rider on the podium, maintaining the composition of the podium as set by the penultimate stage.

How it unfolded

Almeida could have felt fairly secure coming into the last stage of the Tour de Pologne. With a handy advantage over Mohoric and Ulissi, he only needed to get through the roads of Lesser Poland safely. Starting in Zabrze, an industrial centre in Lower Silesia, the route led east, through winding roads of Lesser Poland before entering Kraków for three local laps, 5 kilometres each.

Julius van den Berg (EF Education-Nippo), Gianni Moscon (Ineos Grenadiers), Pieter Vanspeybrouck (Intermarche-Wanty-Gobert Materiaux), Alexis Reynard (Israel Start-Up Nation), and Matteo Jorgenson (Movistar Team) formed the day’s breakaway, getting a slim, two-minute allowance from the peloton.

Deceuninck-QuickStep riders kept the race under control throughout the week and didn’t want any surprises. While Moscon led the group through the final climb of the race and Van den Berg added some Euros to the team’s tally by winning the intermediate sprint, their gap never really went north of two minutes.

Vanspeybrouck won the special premie with 65 kilometres to go and was the first to come back to the bunch with 30 kilometres remaining. His breakaway companions soldiered on, holding an advantage of 90 seconds upon entering the local circuit and managing to force the sprinters’ teams to scramble for help with the chase.

The race turned from a snoozy wait for the fast men to perform in the final metres into a nail-biting affair. With 10 kilometres remaining Moscon, Van den Berg, Reynard, and Jorgenson still held 48 seconds over the bunch and raced around the circuit in a desperate attempt of foiling the sprinters’ teams. Wide roads and the absence of technical corners didn’t play to their hand but the presence of Ineos Grenadiers riders towards the front of the group helped to slow down the chasers. Soon what once seemed like a fantasy started shaping up to be the biggest upset of the race.

The leading four cooperated until the last two kilometres and thus still had 43 seconds at their disposal for the cat-and-mouse game before the sprint. Jorgenson led them into the final kilometre, while Van den Berg launched first, seeing Moscon fade and the bunch closing in on them.

The 24-year-old Dutchman, who previously unsuccessfully scouted breakaways in the Polish race, this time had enough power left to beat Reynard in the sprint and take the biggest win of his career. Alvaro Hodeg (Deceuninck-QuickStep) led the bunch to take 5th place seconds later, crossing the line as Van den Berg’s hand was still pointed into the sky, a simple yet powerful tribute to Bjorg Lambrecht.