Before the beginning of this season the small Polish cycling community was excited by the prospect of a new Continental team which was supposed to start up, built around cyclists from their home country. Unfortunately, the project never materialised. Instead we have the situation which we have today where 12 different teams are present with only 1 rider each. Here is the startlist:
Spoiler
Vesuvio
1. M. Paterski
Eurovision
11. J. Zarebski
Venchi
21. M. Bodnar
Vespa
31. M. Kwiatkowski
Milka
41. A. Honkisz
Bianchi
51. P. Mazur
Ferrari
61. P. Niemiec
Wikipedia
71. G. Lejman
Hollister
81. S. Szmyd
Export
91. M. Rutkiewicz
Finnair
101. L. Bodnar
Aker Solutions
111. K. Marchewka
And straight off the gun Honkisz jumps away. Attacking has proven effective through most of these smaller national championships, so this is a great move.
Other riders realise how important attacking has been, however and bridge up: Zarebski Rutkiewitz Szmyd
Of these four riders Zarebski has the best sprint on him but the small climbs could hurt him slightly. The other riders are really going to have to try something if they want to win this.
And of course with no domestiques the pack just sits up and lets them go. With 80km remaining the gap is at 33 minutes as the leaders lap the rest of the pack.
As the final lap starts, with about 20km left in the race, Szmyd attacks.
Rutkiewitz responds but he can’t quite hold the wheel so sits up and joins the other two chasers.
With around 10km remaining Szmyd has a lead of close to a minute, which is slowly growing out. Everyone else is clearly tired on this 205km course.
And no surprise, Szmyd takes his national champion’s jersey, winning by over 2 minutes.
And attacking proved to be the right choice as Zarebski easily wins the sprint for second. The peloton all abandon so there are only 4 finishers.
There are a few potential winners for the time trial today. The favourites are Mazur, Niemiec and M. Bodnar. Niemiec is the defending champion so if you had to pick just one favourite, it would probably be him.
First up is Mazur. With no time checks out on course it is going to be tough to tell exactly how fast everyone is going. The slightly hilly course probably won’t favour Mazur however, and he may struggle with the distance.
As expected he sets the present best time with 58’33” over 40km. Let’s see how everyone else can match up to this.
Niemiec goes off now. Unlike Mazur, this sort of course should be ideal for him.
And his time proves it as he goes through in 58’10”.
Though we don’t have any time checks, it is clear that this is going to be close as Bodnar is staying about the same distance behind Niemiec the entire way, showing that their times are almost the exact same. But what will be the result?
As he crosses the line the time is 58’06” – he is the new Polish TT champion by just 4 seconds!
