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Tour de Pologne Discussion
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| kandesbunzler26 |
Posted on 01-01-2025 20:50
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 [HC] Tour de Pologne
Welcome to Poland for the 15th edition of the Tour de Pologne.
The Tour de Pologne is part of the calendar since 2007 (though with a hiatus in 2009 to 2011). The roll of honor of this race includes some of the biggest names in the entire MGUCI with Joseph Areruya being the only one with more than one GC win. But the Rwandan isn’t here for the threepeat, so  Kwiatkowski and  Beltran are the only former winners at the start.
Previous winners:
Spoiler
| Year | Winner | | | | | | | | | 2023 | Joseph Areruya (Xero Racing) | | 2022 | Joseph Areruya (Xero Racing) | | 2021 | Michal Kwiatkowski (Aker - MOT) | | 2020 | Robert Gesink (Duolingo) | | 2019 | Pierre-Henri Lecuisinier (Festina - OAKA) | | 2018 | Diego Ulissi (Generali - EDF) | | 2017 | Chris Froome (Fablok - Bank BGZ) | | 2016 | Alex Dowsett (La Poste p/b Mavic) | | 2015 | Andrey Zeits (Netia - Norske Skog) | | 2014 | Eduard Alexander Beltran (Grupo Nutresa) | | 2013 | Blaz Furdi (Team Gazelle) | | 2012 | Francesco Ginanni (Vespa - Aprilia - De Rosa) | | 2008 | Michael Boogerd (Credit Agricole) | | 2007 | Paolo Savoldelli (Liquigas) |
2023 results:
Spoiler
| 1 | Joseph Areruya | Xero Racing | 26h53'38 | | 2 | Louis Meintjes | Bralirwa - Stevens Bikes | + 52 | | 3 | Daan Olivier | Fastned | + 1'02 | | 4 | Adam Yates | Indosat Ooredoo | + 1'08 | | 5 | Marcus Faglum Karlsson | Assa Abloy | + 1'10 | | 6 | Pierre Paolo Penasa | Genii Hyundai N Cycling | + 1'32 | | 7 | Fausto Masnada | Jura GIANTS | + 1'40 | | 8 | Emanuel Buchmann | Team UBS - Tissot | + 2'04 | | 9 | Sergio Higuita | Los Pollos Hermanos | + 2'05 | | 10 | Romain Sicard | Genii Hyundai N Cycling | + 2'21 |
 
The field consists of 18 PCT teams and 4 CT teams. Given the profile of the race there are three groups of riders to look out for: the prologue specialists for stage 1, the sprinters for stages 3 and 4 and the climbers, puncheurs and hybrids for stage 2, 5, 6, 7 and the GC. 
GC:
There are some good climbers, puncheurs and hybrids at the start and with four hilly stages many kinds of riders could have an impact in the GC.  Meintjes,  Yates,  Hirschi,  Buchmann and  Van Niekerk could be the best bets for the win though.
| | MO | HI | TT | ST | RS | RC | PR | | Meintjes | Louis | 80 | 78 | 71 | 77 | 76 | 78 | 71 | | Yates | Adam | 80 | 76 | 71 | 79 | 80 | 76 | 71 |  Tenorio | Justo | 80 | 72 | 76 | 72 | 70 | 73 | 75 |  Schlegel | Michal | 79 | 77 | 65 | 71 | 74 | 76 | 64 | | Lasinis | Venantas | 79 | 72 | 74 | 73 | 72 | 74 | 74 |  Leemreize | Gijs | 78 | 76 | 65 | 70 | 74 | 74 | 65 | | Ndayisenga | Valens | 78 | 75 | 65 | 69 | 68 | 73 | 65 |  Powless | Neilson | 78 | 72 | 78 | 76 | 74 | 76 | 78 | | Hirschi | Marc | 77 | 79 | 66 | 78 | 78 | 77 | 66 |  McCarthy | Jay | 67 | 82 | 58 | 80 | 75 | 70 | 58 | | Buchmann | Emanuel | 76 | 81 | 67 | 73 | 74 | 74 | 67 | | Sagan | Peter | 72 | 81 | 66 | 75 | 71 | 65 | 66 |  Kelderman | Wilco | 70 | 81 | 69 | 79 | 74 | 72 | 69 | | Van Niekerk | Aidan | 75 | 80 | 65 | 72 | 75 | 76 | 65 | | Kwiatkowski | Michal | 76 | 79 | 68 | 71 | 73 | 70 | 73 | | Bagioli | Andrea | 73 | 79 | 69 | 77 | 73 | 71 | 71 | | Tesfatsion | Natnael | 76 | 78 | 61 | 68 | 72 | 74 | 62 | | Beltran | Eduard Alexander | 76 | 78 | 63 | 68 | 67 | 67 | 63 |
 
Sprinters:
The sprints will be heavily contested by a bunch of pretty similar riders. The field clearly is on the weaker side given the names and stats, but we’ve already seen some good stage results and wins this season by riders like Rodenberg,  Hodeg, Kamberaj or  Lutsyshyn.
| | FL | ST | RS | SP | AC | | Rodenberg | Frederik | 74 | 70 | 77 | 79 | 79 | | Hodeg | Alvaro | 72 | 69 | 74 | 79 | 78 | | Kamberaj | Xhuliano | 75 | 73 | 73 | 79 | 78 | | Haller | Marco | 71 | 70 | 69 | 79 | 77 | | Lutsyshyn | Roman | 70 | 69 | 73 | 79 | 80 |  Hayakawa | Tomohiro | 73 | 75 | 68 | 79 | 79 |  Keough | Luke | 72 | 65 | 71 | 78 | 77 | | El Sabbahi | Houcaine | 77 | 72 | 76 | 78 | 77 | | Kennaugh | Peter | 73 | 68 | 65 | 78 | 75 |  Ackermann | Pascal | 72 | 75 | 71 | 77 | 80 |
 
Prologue Specialists:
Given the few surprises we’ve seen in prologues recently it’s pretty sure one of the specialists will take the first stage win. Kopfauf and Durbridge are the biggest favourites while Powless is the only GC rider in this list.
| | FL | TT | ST | RS | PR | | Kopfauf | Markus | 69 | 65 | 67 | 74 | 81 | | Durbridge | Luke | 72 | 80 | 71 | 72 | 80 | | Frame | Alex | 71 | 69 | 69 | 74 | 79 | | Hamza | Faycal | 74 | 76 | 74 | 73 | 79 | | Keough | Luke | 72 | 57 | 65 | 71 | 79 | | Oka | Atsushi | 73 | 74 | 71 | 72 | 79 | | Haugard | Phan Age | 72 | 79 | 74 | 77 | 79 | | Powless | Neilson | 72 | 78 | 76 | 74 | 78 | | Arif Prayogo | Dealton Nur | 73 | 76 | 73 | 75 | 78 | | Pedersen | Casper | 76 | 67 | 73 | 76 | 78 |
 
Full start list:
Edited by kandesbunzler26 on 01-01-2025 22:27
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| jandal7 |
Posted on 01-01-2025 21:13
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Hope you all enjoy an Areruya-free edition before we either relegate or bring on a Polish sponsor in an attempt to bring it to PTHC 
The Meintjes-Ndayisenga punch could be unbeatable here to at least attempt an interesting African threepeat of a Rwandan on a South African team followed by a South African on a Rwandan team 
Sad not to see Bennett giving it another go after his previous stage success in a TT-heavier edition, but given the strong startlist probably the wise move from Spark (who also bring a former winner anyway!).
24/02/21 - kandesbunzler said “I don't drink famous people."
15/08/22 - SotD said "Your [jandal's] humour is overrated"
11/06/24 - knockout said "Winning is fine I guess. Truth be told this felt completely unimportant."
[ICL] Santos-Euskadi | [PT]  Xero Racing
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| Ad Bot |
Posted on 04-01-2025 22:17
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| Fabianski |
Posted on 01-01-2025 21:13
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HC wildcards for PT teams?  Also, the team names of some GC favourites got somehow mixed up.
I'm pretty sure we'll get a new winner this year. Meintjes and Yates did very well last year, so they'd be the obvious picks - but I value Hirschi pretty high as well (not just for patriotic reasons). Buchmann or Schlegel could do well, too, whereas I guess that some of the climbers are lacking the punch to get some bonus seconds which could be crucial. And USAPCC hero Bagioli might just lack 2-3 Mo points to keep up on the longer climbs - but by now I wouldn't be overly surprised if he still did
Good luck to all, should be a nice race 
And thanks for doing the preview to kb (and to Imladrik for the reports if I'm not mistaken).
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| kandesbunzler26 |
Posted on 01-01-2025 22:31
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Fabianski wrote:
HC wildcards for PT teams? Also, the team names of some GC favourites got somehow mixed up.
If you put those together in a hurry and forget to change the entries of the template 
Thanks for pointing it out, it's been changed
Also, we're actually in this race, so here's my two cents: Hodeg being among the best sprinters gives us some hope, as long as we don't have to put together a sprint train. Lapeira still needs one or two years of development to be of use in one of those. Apart from the flat stages we're here for stage or KoM hunting with Paulus or Le Gac.
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| quadsas |
Posted on 02-01-2025 00:41
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Sagan + Kwiatkowski = disaster incoming
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| Jakstar22 |
Posted on 02-01-2025 03:17
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Surely Beltran wins the GC here  no but seriously hopefully we can get a decent amount of points here. With our back up leaders essentially it is key that we get some good points in this race.
Good luck everyone!
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| Gustavovskiy |
Posted on 02-01-2025 08:03
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We have a pretty good squad here. Our goals are to miss out on a flat stage top10 and not to enter any breakaways. Given our track record I reckon we have a very good chance at being successful once again.
Thanks for the preview kb!
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| AbhishekLFC |
Posted on 02-01-2025 11:24
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Didn't expect Leemreize to actually feature on the favourites list but he's there just below the real favourites, so we'll see if I just pulled out a planning masterclass Jokes apart, just about 3 expecting a Top 15 here with some breakaway involvement.
Thanks for the preview kb
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| whitejersey |
Posted on 02-01-2025 17:52
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Firstly, thanks for the preview!
Secondly, Meurisse is here for individual stage results, I have no hope for him in the GC with the all the big guns being here.
I had hoped that Milan would grab the U25 jersey on the prolouge and he managed to do that by 1 second, so very happy with that outcome!
Thanks for the report and congrats to Adler on the stage win!
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| Bjartne |
Posted on 02-01-2025 21:50
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Decent job by Kaczmarek on that first stage.
Looking forward to how Ackermann can handle the hilly stages to come in this tour |
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| Jakstar22 |
Posted on 03-01-2025 01:39
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No one here to actually compete in the prologue so didn't expect anything here. Beltran loses 50 seconds but still not too bad. Hopefully the hill stages can deliver some interesting results.
Congrats to Durbridge on the win and great report
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| Ulrich Ulriksen |
Posted on 03-01-2025 01:49
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Thought this was Sosa-time but I went back and forth during planning and must have decided Yates was the better answer.
It is a win goal and he was not far off winning the not-Areruya division last year so we can hope. We need to start picking up big points. So no pressure Adam. Prologue time loss seems manageable so that stage is checked off.
Haller is making his stage race debut for the team (Colomiba being lost in a time warp). I like where he sits in the sprint pool so be nice to see at least one good sprint from him.
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| AbhishekLFC |
Posted on 03-01-2025 05:52
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Van Dijkes did decently in the Prologue. We did not have any hopes from it.
Congrats to Adler and thanks for the report!
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| Bjartne |
Posted on 03-01-2025 11:01
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Our guys climbed quite a bit in the GC here, lovely to see Kaczmarek so high up and Ackermann is not far behind. Hyped for the next hilly stages here |
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| quadsas |
Posted on 03-01-2025 18:23
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Not bad at all, gotta hope for no collapse on the flats now
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| Jakstar22 |
Posted on 03-01-2025 22:08
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Beltran in the front group losing no time. Good start. Keep that going and he can move up on GC!
Congrats to the winner and great report
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| kandesbunzler26 |
Posted on 03-01-2025 22:17
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Congrats to Adler and sammy for the first stage wins and thanks to Imladrik for the reports!
We have been totally anonymous so far and it's clear the GC is out of reach, but we were here for stage hunting anyway, so the next two stages are about getting Hodeg to score something.
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| Eden95 |
Posted on 04-01-2025 02:09
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Congrats Adler and Sammy! I wonder if this is the start of Hirschi’s dominance?
Not much hope for us here - sent Bagioli and Tenorio here as they both had spare race days and that’s about it really. Both have done very well so far - Tenorio currently 3rd GC and Bagioli in the top-20 after a nice prologue. No real expectations from here though, Bagioli should find it too hard so hoping maybe for a break appearance, and just *maybe* a top 10 from Tenorio
@Ulrich Yates did well here last year, the race suits him well as a lot of the stage finishes are seemingly designed for him. Seems to be doing well so far, hopefully he can smash out a few stage wins and a good GC
Thanks for the preview and reports so far!
Indosat - ANZ HQ
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| Ulrich Ulriksen |
Posted on 04-01-2025 04:27
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Yates had me worried as he seemed to be badly positioned early in the climb, but popped up at the end. More suited stages later in the race although would have preferred to not have legit GC guys like Hirschi and Buchmann taking bonus seconds.
@Eden - thanks, hopefully he is half as good as Bagioli was in the US.
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