Fernando Gaviria (Etixx-QuickStep) continued his rise through the sprinting ranks by claiming his second win on the WorldTour on stage 2 of the Tour de Pologne. After an excellent lead-out from his teammates, he launched a long sprint and narrowly held off Elia Viviani (Sky) and Caleb Ewan (Orica-BikeExchange) in a photo finish to take both the victory and the overall lead.

Ever since he beat Mark Cavendish at last year’s Tour de San Luis, Fernando Gaviria has been destined for stardom. Lat in the year he confirmed his potential as an Etixx-QuickStep stagiaire as he made André Greipel look like a junior rider in a sprint at the Tour of Britain and many were looking forward to his debut at the WorldTour in 2016.

Things got off to a great start for Gaviria as he won his first ever WorldTour sprint on stage 2 of Tirreno-Adriatico just days after he had claimed a second Worlds title on the omnium. He later proved that he can be a contender in the classics too as a late crash made the world wonder what might have been at Milan-Sanremo.

Unfortunately, an injury slowed his progress down and he missed all his races in May. When he returned to competition in June, he was not at his best and the Tour de Suisse ended as a bit of a disappointment.

Now he has set his sights on the omnium at the Olympics and this week he uses the Tour de Pologne to prepare. Yesterday he proved his return to form by winning the sprint behind his attacking teammate Davide Martinelli and today he confirmed his status as the fastest rider in the strong sprinting field by winning a very close sprint on stage 2.

After the surprise in the first stage, the sprinters were  expected to get there revenge in stage two which brought the riders over 153km from Tarnowskie Gory to Katowice. After a flat start, the stage ended with five laps of a 14.7km circui. It had two small climbs, one of them summiting just one kilometre from the finish, but history showed that the stage has often been decided in a very fast downhill sprint.

Unlike yesterday, the riders had sunny conditions when the gathered for the start and before they took off, they held one minute to honor yesterday’s train crash in Italy. Surprisingly, they got the race off to a very aggressive start despite the prospect of a bunch sprint and even the GC riders went on the attack.

After more than 20km of racing, no one had gone clear but then a very strong group formed. Michal Kwiatkowski (Sky), Marco Coledan (Trek), Youcef Reguigui (Dimension Data), Bob Jungels (Etixx-QuickStep), Sebastien Minard (Ag2r), Tom Leezer (LottoNL-Jumbo), SimonYates (Orica-BikeExchange), Danilo Wyss (BMC), Matej Mohoric (Lampre-Merida) and Mirco Maestri (Bardiani) got an advantage of 35 seconds. However, they were brought back before the first intermediate sprint where Yates picked up 3 important bonus seconds by beating Diego Ulissi (Lampre-Merida) and Valerio Agnoli (Astana).

After the sprint, things calmed down and Jonas Koch (Verva), Marcel Aregger (IAM), Bakhtiyar Kozhatayev (Astana), Dariusz Detko (Poland) and Lukasz Owsian (CCC) were allowed to go clear. After Koch had won the special sprint, the quintet built an advantage of 2 minutes.

Koch beat Kozhatayev and Owsian in the second intermediate sprint and he was also the fastest in the third sprint where the order of passage was the same. However, they had a hard time gaining time on the peloton which was only 1.50 behind.

The gap stabilized at around 2 minutes as they hit the finishing circuit. Laurens De Plus and Pieter Serry were doing the work for Etixx-QuickStep to keep the situation under control. At the end of the first lap, the gap was still 1.58.

Serry and De Plus kept riding on the front while the front group contested the first KOM sprint on the second climb of the circuit. Owsian did a long sprint and held off Aregger and Kozhatayev to pick up the only point on offer. Moments later they crossed the line with an advantage of 145.

De Plus and Serry accelerated significantly in the third lap and as the crossed the line again, the gap was only 35 seconds. The front group still tried to keep them at bay and cooperated nicely until they hit the first climb where the second KOM sprint was located. Here Kozhatayev tried to attack from the bottom but he was just passed by Aregger before the line.

At the top, the pair had a big gap but only Aregger decided to press on. Kozahatayev fell back to the peloton while Owsian, Detko and Koch tried to make it back to the lone Swiss. At the same time, the fight for position intensified in the peloton.

Etixx-QuickStep disappeared from the front as everybody now wanted to be in a good position and it was Lotto Soudal and Orica-BikeExchange who lined out their troops in either side of the road. They brought the three chasers back with 22km to go.

Aregger continued to dig deep and entered the final 20km with an advantage of 25 seconds but now his gap was coming down rapidly. Orica-BikeExchange had taken complete control with Svein Tuft who set a brutal pace with four teammates on his wheel, trying to set Caleb Ewan up for a sprint.

Tuft rode hard and with 15km to go, it was all over for Aregger who was brought back as they headed up the final climb for the penultimate time. Tuft continued to ride on the front, leading the peloton across the line to start the final lap.

Tuft led for another five kilometres before LottoNL-Jumbo lined up their train next to him. The Dutch team then took control with Victor Campenaerts and Alexey Vermeulen while Sam Bewley kept Orica safe just a few positions further back.

Bob Jungels hit the front for Etixx-QuickStep but he was without his teammates who were further back. Instead the Luxembourger had the Orica train behind him. When he swung off, LottoNL-Jumbo, Orica-BikeExhange and Tinkoff lined out on the front, with Dennis van Winden, Bewley and Daniele Bennati setting the pace.

Bennati took control with 7km to go and rode hard for two kilometres until Dimension Data again came to the fore. Bewley, Jens Keukeleire, Luka Mezgec and Ewan were lined out while Andrea Guardini tried to move into position further back.

Bewley led under the 3km to go banner and then Keukeleire took over. Sky had won the battle for Ewan’s wheel and it was Kwiatkowski who was leading Elia Viviani into the perfect position.

Riders were getting dropped as Keukeleire powered onto the climb but he was unable to respond when Jungels took control, followed by Lukasz Wisniowski and Zdenek Stybar. Mezgec dug deep to keep Ewan up there next to them before a Cannondale rider made an attack.

Wisnowski brought the attacker back under the flamme rouge and then took over the pace-setting as they turned around and headed back towards the finish. Stybar made sure than the pace was kept high and then the rest of the Etixx train moved up.

Race leader Davide Martinelli brought Niolas Maes and Gaviria forward and then the Belgian did the lead-out. Ewan was quick to latch onto the Colombian’s wheel.

Nikias Arndt (Giant-Alpecin) launched a long sprint which forced Gaviria to react immediately. The Colombian easily distanced the German before Ewan tried to come around. Viviani came from further back and it came down to a close photo finish between the trio, with no one celebrating the win. In the end, Gaviria had crossed the line in first position, followed by Viviani and Ewan.

With the win, Gaviria takes the leader’s jersey with a 6-second advantage over his teammate Martinelli. Things will get much harder I tomorrow’s very long 240km third stage. After a flat start, the riders will tackle a category and two category 2 climbs in quick succession, the final top coming with 23.4km to go. From there, they will descent to the finish where they will end the race by doing three laps of a flat 7.4km circuit.