Marcel Kittel (Giant-Alpecin) got the perfect comeback after a racing break when he won the first stage of the Tour de Pologne in a bunch sprint. Having been given the perfect lead-out by Luka Mezgec and Nikias Arndt, he went head-to-head with Caleb Ewan (Orica-GreenEDGE) after the final turn and managed to pass the Australian to take his first win since January and the first leader’s jersey in the Polish race.

The 2015 season has been made up of disappointments for Marcel Kittel who has failed to win a single race since the came out on top in the Down Under Classic, his very first race of the year. Since then, a virus has set him back and he has barely done any racing.

Things only got worse when he missed out on selection for the Tour de France at a point when he had finally started to show some form with solid showings in Rund um Köln and Ster ZLM Toer. The disappointment left him hugely disappointed and so many were curious to see how he would be riding when he returned to racing in today’s opening stage of the Tour de Pologne.

However, it seems that Kittel hasn’t missed much training during the last few weeks as he came out on top in the first stage of the race. To make things even more symbolic, he won the opening stage in Warsaw just as he did four years ago when he took his first WorldTour win and went on to claim another three victories in the WorldTour race.

Like so often before it was again a perfect lead-out by Giant-Alpecin that laid the foundations for the win. With a very technical finale, team support was crucial and the German team knew that it was important to time everything right.

After Movistar had controlled the race in the finale, it was Orica-GreenEDGE who hit the front with Simon Clarke, Mathew Hayman and Ewan with 7km to go. The former rode strongly on the front but had clearly taken control too early. They were saved a bit when Francisco Ventoso took a big turn for Movistar before Damien Howson came from behind to take over for the Australian team.

Howson rode strongly on the front while the battle between the lead-out trains was on further back. Lampre-Merida and Trek were ready to strike but it was Katusha that moved up alongside Orica-GreenEDGE, with Anton Vorobyev riding next to Mathew Hayman who had taken over for the Australians.

Murilo Fischer hit the front for FDJ before Giant-Alpecin kicked into action. Bert De Backer, Luka Mezgec, Nikias Arndt and Kittel took control as they hit the bottom of a small climb with less than three kilometres to go.

Dennis van Winden (LottoNL-Jumbo) tried to attack but was quickly brought back by Mitchell Docker (Orica-GreenEDGE) whoc otninued to ride on the front as they passed the flamme rouge. That’s when Mezgec took over but as Kittel had lost a few positions he had to make a first sprint to get back to the Slovenian and Arndt.

After Arndt had taken a turn, Kittel hit the front just before the final turn with 200m but he seemed to have lost it when Ewan passed him before they entered the corner. However, the German had a much better line through the bend which allowed him to start his sprint next to the Australian and from there the outcome was never in doubt. Kittel held Ewan off while Niccolo Bonifazio (Lampre-Merida) took third.

With the win, Kittel also takes the first leader’s jersey in the race and will try to defend his position in tomorrow’s second stage. It’s another almost completely flat course and with another bunch sprint on the card, he has a big chance to make it two in a row.

One for the sprinters

The 72nd Tour de Pologne kicked off with a short circuit race in the capital of Warsaw where the riders covered ten laps of a 12.2km circuit. The roads were completely flat and mostly without any technical challenges but the final two kilometres included several turns on narrower roads which meant that the expected bunch sprint would be more of a battle between lead-outs than between sprinters.

It was a great summer day in Poland when the riders gathered for the start of the first stage. Unfortunately, Davide Rebellin (CCC) crashed alreadt in the neutral zone but he was able to continue the race.

A trio takes off

Unsurprisingly, a rider from the Polish national team attacked straight from the gun and it didn’t take long time for an early break to be formed. Adrian Kurek (CCC), Pawel Bernas (Poland) and Matej Mohoric (Cannondale-Garmin) quickly got an advantage of 20 seconds which prompted the peloton to slow down.

At the end of the first lap, the gap had already gone out to 2.45 which was the signal for Giant-Alpecin to come to the fore. The German team hit the front to control the situation and kept the gap stable for a while.

Big alliance between the sprint teams

Tinkoff-Sao also started to do some chase work which meant that the gap had been brought down to 2.10 after the second lap. At this point, Tinkoff-Saxo had disappeared and instead IAM were working with Giant-Alpecin. Unfortunately, the German team was hit by a setback when Caleb Fairly was forced to abandon.

At the end of the second lap, the gap was 2.25 and now Orica-GreenEDGE and Astana were working with IAM and Giant-Alpecin, meaning that the teams of Caleb Ewan, Andrea Guardini, Matteo Pelucchi and Marcel Kittel had all shown interest in a sprint finish. Christian Meier, Ivan Santaromita (Orica-GreenEDGE), Paolo Tiralongo (Astana), Tom Stamsnijder (Giant-Alpecin) and Clement Chevrier (IAM) have been given the task of doing the early chase work and they worked well together to reduce the gap to 1.35 at the end of the fourth lap.

The gap stabilizes

With 65km to go, the gap was down to just 1.10 and more riders were now contributing to the pace-setting. Stefan Denifl (IAM), Diego Rosa and Andrey Zeits (Astana) all came to the fore while Santaromita and Tiralongo ended their day on the front.

At the halfway point, the gap was 1.00 but the peloton realized that it was too early to catch the break. Hence, they slowed down and allowed the gap to go out to 1.10 as Rosa, Chevrier, Zeits, Meier and Stamsnijder continued to set the pace.

Kurek takes the mountains jersey

The gap was again down to a minute at the end of the sixth lap which gave the escapees room to fight for the first mountains jersey. Kurek tried to attack twice and it was the second move that allowed him to drop his chasers. He took maximum points while Bernas and Mohoric rolled across the lines a few seconds later before he waited for his two chasers.

Rosa finished his work in the peloton which was 1.25 behind at the end of the seventh lap. At this point, two IAM riders and Nikolay Mihaylov (CCC) hit the deck but they all managed to rejoin the peloton.

The break splits up

As the escapees approached the intermediate sprint, the fight for the points started. Mohoric attacked two times but it was his hard pace on the climb that dropped Bernas. Meanwhile, there was a big fight in the peloton as Lotto Soudal, Tinkoff-Saxo and Movistar had lined out their trains on the front.

Mohoric managed to beat Kurek in the intermediate sprint and briefly dropped the Pole before the pair found back together. However, the peloton was breathing down their next as Meier, Chevrier and Stamsnijder had gone back to work after the chaotic phase on the climb.

Gretsch and Breen on the attack

With 20km to go, Movistar also started to chase with Ventoso and at this point, the gap was down to just 10 seconds. This prompted Patrick Gretsch (Ag2r) to attack and he quickly passed the two escapees who were reeled in.

Vegard Breen (Lotto Soudal) joined Gretsch while Alex Dowsett (Movistar) and a CCC rider made a failed attempt to also make the junction. The two escapees worked very well together to maintain a 10-second advantage while Ventoso led the chase for Movistar.

As they passed the finish line to start the final lap, the leading pair decided to sit up and moments later Ventoso had brought them back. He traded pulls with his teammate Jasha Sütterlin for a big part of the final lap before Gatis Smukulis took over for Katusha. Ventoso and Sütterlin got back to work but it was Orica-GreenEDGE that started the battle between the sprint team with 7km to go, setting the scene for the finale.