Having been on the back foot in most of the race, Team Sky ended the Tour de Pologne with a pleasant surprise when climber Philip Deignan did a surprisingly good time trial to move into seventh in the overall standings. The result proves that the Irishman is getting into good form for the Vuelta where he will ride in support of Chris Froome.

Philip Deignan jumped up to seventh overall following the final stage time trial at the Tour of Poland while Dario Cataldo rode to a fine sixth on the day.

12th on the stage, Deignan elevated himself 11 places on the final leaderboard with a strong ride against the clock, an encouraging result heading into the next phase of the season.

Cataldo was also at the sharp end, the Italian setting a competitive time over the 25-kilometre test in Krakow to come home 28 seconds behind stage winner Kristof Vandewalle (Trek Factory Racing).

Vandewalle’s time of 29 minutes and 18 seconds held up well against the general classification contenders and saw the Belgian champion claim stage success by just three seconds over Adriano Malori (Movistar).

Attention quickly turned to the fight for the yellow jersey as home favourite Rafal Majka headed into the final stage with a lead of 18 seconds to defend.

The Tinkoff-Saxo rider dug deep against the clock to set the 13th best time, enough to hold off his nearest rivals and win the race by eight seconds.

Movistar pairing Ion Izagirre and Benat Intxausti came closest to Majka, rounding out the overall podium eight and 22 seconds back respectively. Deignan ended the race 1:24 back after a consistent second half of the event.

"That was a really good time trial from Philip," said Sports Director Gabriel Rasch following the stage.

"He is a rider who can go quicker and pull out a time if he has something to fight for and we saw that today.

"It was nice to come out of the race with a solid result. We were hoping for a top five on the GC but seventh is a good result and we'll look to build on where we are in the coming races."