It was the turn of Luka Mezgec to sprint for a top placing on stage 4 of the Tour de Pologne but with a breakaway staying clear to take the podium places the best result possible was fourth place on the day. Mezgec was well positioned by just bettered to the line taking fifth on the day.

A breakaway of three riders pulled clear early in the stage containing three strong rouleurs who built up a strong advantage over the peloton. The day’s parcours was testing both in length and in gradients too at 220km and with several climbs to tackle en route to the finish in Nowy Sacz. With under 40km to race and the break’s advantage still hovering at around five minutes the pace picked up in the bunch causing a split in the peloton over the day’s final climb. Despite a strong chase Marcel Kittel was unable to make his way back to the front of the race to challenge for the stage and so it was over to Mezgec, Lawson Craddock and Johannes Fröhlinger to try their luck.

The chase continued to pick up but the peloton ran out of ground in catching the three riders out front as they fought out the stage honours with 20 seconds to spare. Maciej Bodnar (Tinkoff-Saxo) took the stage while Kamil Zielinski (Poland) moves into the overall race lead.

After the stage coach Addy Engels gave his thoughts on the day, “We had the plan to go for a bunch sprint with Marcel today, and we controlled at the beginning of the race as we saw an opportunity of the race coming back together. In the hilly part the break rode away and the gap grew pretty quickly.

“In the hilly part we saw that Marcel had it difficult, and decided to play our cards for Luka. Due to our work at the beginning of the race, we didn’t had the full power to help him late on in bringing back the break. Luka came in second after a long stage and difficult day, which is a good sign after a long period without racing. We also protected Lawson in the GC, so things are under control and still going well there.”

After the stage the team took the decision that Nikias Arndt would not start stage five. Arndt wasn’t feeling 100% and with some tough days ahead the team’s experts took the decision to rest him ahead of his coming goals.