Team Sky were unable to make an Impact on the opening stage of the Tour de Pologne after crashes caused carnage in Bydgoszcz.

Philip Deignan, Kanstantsin Siutsou and Salvatore Puccio were all caught up in a large tumble after a flash hailstorm wreaked havoc in the peloton, and then Ben Swift, Josh Edmondson and Dario Cataldo were also held up as the slick roads claimed a number of casualties on a tight finishing circuit.

Sebastian Henao was Team Sky’s highest-ranked finisher, rolling home in 39th place after Yauheni Hutarovich had sprinted to victory.

Hutarovich (AG2R) timed his late kick to perfection to outpace Roman Maikin (RusVelo) and Manuele Mori (Lampre-Merida), but it was Matthias Krizek (Cannondale) who took the leader’s jersey after amassing 22 bonus seconds from the day’s breakaway.

The race had got off to a warm but windy start in Gdansk with Gradek present in a five-man escape group who had moved clear during the early exchanges.

The quintet saw their advantage grow to a whopping 14 minutes as they forged along the 226km parcours, but Giant-Shimano halved that lead when they started pulling, and Team Sky also aided the chase before the weather took a huge turn for the worse.

It proved the first of several crashes on what was a wild and wild finale, with every member of the breakaway taking a tumble as they commenced the first of three finishing circuits.

Maciej Paterski (CC Polsat) was the first escapee back on his feet from that group and produced a dogged defence of his lead before he was eventually reeled in 1.7km from home.

By then the pace was electric and Peter Velits (BMC Racing) chipped off the front before the peloton swept him up and Hutarovich powered to his third win of the season.

After the stage, Sports Director Gabriel Rasch was able to update us on the riders’ condition and shed some light on what had been an eventful start to the race.

“I think most of the team fell at some point today. Swifty hurt his shoulder and Kosta also went down pretty hard, but the rest of the guys came through it OK,” he told the Team Sky website.

“It was crazy. It had been 35 degrees [centigrade] at the start but the winds whipped up and the temperatures halved before that hailstorm hit. Josh had been doing a lot of work up to that point, but then it was carnage, with crashes everywhere.”

“With Swifty out of contention and Edvald [Boasson Hagen] also held up, our goals shifted to ensure Sebastian and Philip didn’t lose any time on their main GC rivals, and they achieved that,” he continued.

“We’ll assess how everyone is tonight and hopefully be good to go again tomorrow. That stage is exactly the same length and features another technical finishing circuit, so we hope the weather improves and we don’t see a repeat of today’s crashes,” he finished.