Luka Mezgec went into today's first stage of the Tour de Pologne as one of the overwhelming favourites but the Slovenian was involved in a bad crash on the finishing straight. Having helped control the race all day, however, his Giant-Shimano team is pleased with its efforts that also included avoiding a potential time loss for GC rider Georg Preidler.

Several crashes for Team Giant-Shimano riders put an end to their hopes of any chance of a result on the opening stage of the Tour de Pologne.

Georg Preidler, Tobias Ludvigsson and Nikias Arndt all crashed during the stage and then in the finishing sprint Luka Mezgec also came down hard putting an end to his sprint chances.

The opening stage turned out to be heavily affected by rain, as riders crashed both in the bunch and from the breaks as well.

The stage got underway with a break of five riders who pulled out an advantage of over 13 minutes. The chase behind took time to organise but Team Giant-Shimano, together with a couple of other teams eventually took up the burden and started to bring the gap down.

Preidler’s chances or a good result overall were nearly ended on day one after his crash, but the team worked hard to bring him back to the bunch, with success.

The efforts from the bunch were eventually enough and in the final few kilometres the race came back together for a bunch sprint.

The team positioned Mezgec in the final kilometre but a touch of wheels saw him hit the deck, while ahead Yauheni Hutarovich (AG2R) took the stage. Thankfully there were no broken bones but he will be feeling the after effects tomorrow.

After the stage Arndt said: “It was a difficult stage today made harder by the bad weather. We started to pull with Sky and Garmin behind the break but the chase wasn’t that organised. The weather then turned and made things harder, and several of us came down so it was not our day.

“The team still did a good job though and I think that we will have more opportunities in the coming days.”

Team Giant-Shimano coach Addy Engels added: “The plan today was to help control the race for a sprint then for Nikias and Ramon to do the lead-out for Luka at the end.

“However after Georg crashed the team had to work hard to bring him back and this cost Nikias for the end. Ramon then had to pull hard to help bring back a BMC rider [Peter Velits] at the end and so Luka was a bit isolated. Despite a disappointing day with lots of crashes including a bad one for Luka at the end I am pleased by how the guys worked together.

“Georg importantly didn’t lose any time in the overall after his fall due to the team’s hard work. Hopefully the guys who came down will not have too much pain tomorrow.”