The MGUCI peloton comes back in Poland for the 11th time in a row. It’s a week long hilly stage race, whose route didn’t change much during the last years. It begins with a 7,7 km flat prologue around Krakow, and then includes two flat stages, and 4 hilly stages, 3 of which have an uphill finish. The sixth stage, in the Tatras, could even be considered a mountain stage, with its arrival at the Morskie Oko, more than 1000 meters above sea level.

With a HC rank this year, we have 21 PCT teams and 3 CT teams who made the trip to Poland. Let’s see which of them came for the GC.

Name	MO	HI	ST	RS	RC	SP	AC	FG	DH	PR
Jay McCarthy	67	82	80	75	70	65	74	71	71	58
Eduard Alexander Beltran	79	81	73	72	72	66	76	78	74	66
Edvald Boasson Hagen	66	81	75	68	66	69	73	71	62	68
Joseph Areruya	79	81	76	78	79	68	76	75	60	65
Pedro Miguel Paulinho	75	80	70	72	74	68	75	70	62	64
Odd Christian Eiking	69	80	78	74	71	68	76	75	69	67
Oleksandr Prevar	71	80	77	70	68	67	73	63	66	62
Zico Waeytens	71	80	72	70	68	66	73	76	75	65
Alex Aranburu	77	79	70	79	74	68	71	62	67	63
Gianni Moscon	73	79	76	77	75	59	73	71	69	70
Pello Bilbao	67	79	77	71	71	71	75	67	66	61
Laurens De Plus	76	79	74	73	71	61	72	68	66	65
Amanuel Gebrezgabihier	70	79	74	74	72	67	69	77	66	64
Sven Erik Bystrom	68	79	75	72	67	68	76	78	73	61
Johan Esteban Chaves	76	79	74	73	72	60	72	69	64	68
Domen Novak	80	77	74	76	77	65	76	73	75	64

As we could expect, we have a strong field of punchers ready to bring home the victory. Among them, Eduard Alexander Beltran and Joseph Areruya seem like the more complete riders, with solid chances to bring the GC home. The former was 2nd last year, with two stages win. We’ll see whether he’ll be able to repeat his performance, as Kwiatkowski is now showing is qualities in the PT. Though Cedevita didn’t bring Pogacar this time, they still have some good support for the Colombian rider. Areyua has the strenghths – and the team – to improve his 14th place of 2020
Laurens De Plus is a solid rider too, but we’ll have to see what the teams tactics are, as though Domen Novak doen’t have his punch, he’s better in the longer hills and could have a strong result on stage 6. Trans Looney Tunes also brings two potential leaders with Waeytens and Bystrom.
CT rider Gianni Moscon was 7th here last year, and he’s got all the qualities to have a very good race. He’s the top prologue rider among the favorites, and a good first stage could get him some precious seconds. But for that, he’ll have to show a better form that what he’s had since the beginning of the season.

Name	FL	RS	SP	AC
Marco Haller	72	71	80	79
Nacer Bouhanni	74	69	80	77
Sebastian Lander	77	72	79	77
Joeri Stallaert	77	68	79	76
Tomohiro Hayakawa	73	68	79	79
Elias Afewerki	73	70	79	80
Michael Vingerling	71	66	79	79
Roman Lutsyshyn	70	73	79	80

The top field is a bit reduced compared to the puncher field, but there should be a strong competition for the two flat stages. And we only show the best sprinters here, as some other fast men also came in Poland.
Among those, only Sebastian Lander won a stage last year.

Name	FL	RS	PR
Gabriel Chavanne	75	76	82
Nils Schomber	73	76	81
Luke Durbridge	73	74	81
Szymon Sajnok	74	76	79
Wout Van Aert	75	73	79
Marcus Faglum Karlsson	71	75	79
Faycal Hamza	74	73	79
Michael Christodoulos	72	69	79
Jingbiao Zhao	74	74	78
Oleksandr Golovash	72	69	78
Tushantha Rajapakshage	72	72	78

And the top favorite for the first stage is a CT rider ! Gabriel Chavanne will want to launch the race with a win for his team. His two top contenders should be Nils Schomber and Luke Durbridge, whose teams should have big ambitions for the GC. The first stage will already be a hard fight!

DaveTwoBob wrote:
hoping for a strong Teams result