Robert Kiserlovski and Pawel Poljanski finished among the first group of riders separated from the majority of the bunch after the peloton split in the final sprint of Tour de Pologne. Here, Marcel Kittel claimed the win, while the two Tinkoff-Saxo captains took 8 seconds on several favorites.

After the stage finish, Tinkoff-Saxo sports director Bruno Cenghialta says that a technical finale caused the peloton to fracture.

“It was a very fast race today, where the riders did a 122km stage on a circuit in Warsaw. A small breakaway escaped but teams like Movistar, Giant and Astana pulled at the front to reel it in again. It wasn’t a super hard stage, but we went into the final kilometers at a very high speed with a lot of twists and turns and the peloton split with around 1km to go”, says Bruno Cenghialta.

Tinkoff-Saxo’s two main riders aiming for the overall classification, Kiserlovski and Poljanski, hung tight and finished with the first group of 28 riders. Bruno Cenghialta notes that the eight seconds gained are insignificant compared to what awaits later on in Tour de Pologne.

“Kiserlovski took 15th place and Poljanski was the 28th rider and the final one to make it in the first group. We are happy that we avoided any crashes and it’s of course better to gain eight seconds on some than lose eight seconds. But we will see much bigger time differences, as we hit the medium mountains in the second part of the race. Tomorrow, I expect to see another fast race with a bunch sprint finish”, concludes Bruno Cenghialta.