Maciej Bodnar claimed the victory on stage 4 of Tour de Pologne. The Polish Tinkoff-Saxo rider suffered a hard crash in May at Tour of California, but proved beyond doubt that he has made a full recovery, as he took the win from the three-strong breakaway.

Maciej Bodnar lid the afterburners on the final 250 meters of stage 4 and sprinted his way to a convincing victory after spending the full 220km stage in the breakaway. After crossing the line, Bodnar says with elation:

“You cannot imagine how happy I am with this victory. It is the result of nearly three months of sacrifices and extremely hard work after the crash I had in California. All that work paid its dividends today and it's exhilarating to win a stage at the Tour de Pologne. I wanted very much this victory and went in the breakaway from the first kilometer. All three of us pulled hard and when we had a lead of 11 minutes, approximately 90 kilometers from the finish, I started believing that we could make it”, says Maciej Bodnar, who now sits 2nd in the GC trailing by just 3 seconds.

“Then at 40km from the finish that advantage had gone down to 6 minutes and at that point I was nearly sure the stage win would be played among the three of us in the breakaway. We collaborated very well in the flat part and we felt that the peloton wouldn't be able to reach us. We talked about it and decided to go full gas and take the stage.

“This is my first career victory at the Tour de Pologne and in a World Tour race. I set out with the number 1 for the 2014 winner, my team mate Rafal Majka, who is absent this year; it brought me luck and I think I have honoured this number in the best way possible.

"I had been gunning for this stage from the start of the Tour; I knew I could try an action from far back and I went for it. In the final when we saw that our margin of advantage was still considerable we knew we could do it and so the three of us agreed to keep pushing to the finish and then vie for victory.

"Now we can expect three challenging stages that will decide the race. Today I spent a lot of energy; tomorrow and especially on Friday there are lots of climbs, but then on Saturday there is a time trial that is suited to my skills and in which I would like to do well."

After the 220km stage in undulating terrain, Tinkoff-Saxo sports director Bruno Cenghialta underlines that the team plan A played out to perfection:

"We are very happy with today's result and Maciej's stage win. Our strategy played out today exactly the way we had planned. Our plan A was to have Bodnar attack early on the stage and he went in the breakaway from the first kilometer. We also had a plan B in case it didn't work out but everything went perfectly and the first breakaway led the race to the finish. The biggest lead they had over the peloton was 11:30 minutes, which gave them the opportunity to reach the local circuit with an advantage of 3:30 minutes. Then it started raining and the peloton wasn't able to reach them", says Cenghialta before adding:

"Bodnar was in top form today, very strong and we scored a great victory. This was our clear goal today. We wanted to attack in order not to bring the sprinters to a bunch sprint. If that hadn't worked out, we had a plan B, to attack with another three riders in order to bring a smaller group to the finish and try having a reduced sprint. However, it wasn't necessary as Bodnar performed brilliantly. The other teams weren't willing to pull hard because they didn't want to lose their sprinters at the final climb with a 10% gradient. They waited too long and by the time they could attack, the breakaway was leading by 4:30 minutes. Since Thursday and Friday are tough stages for Maciej, we wanted to do exactly this today and then focus again on the time trial on Saturday. Everything was planned today to achieve a very good result and it couldn't have been better! He won!", concludes the sports director.