Tour de Pologne 2025 Stage 1

August 4, 2025 The Tour de Pologne marks a shift in the season when we get to see riders we may not have seen in action since the Giro or other week-long stage races in May and June. Stage 1 has bunch sprint written all over it. There is only 800M of elevation gain over the nearly 200KM of racing between Wrocław, Poland's third largest city and home of the Wrocław Dwarves, and the Medieval city of Legnica. The sprint field in this year's race is strong with Olav Kooij the 5 star sprinter and a number of challengers such as Sam Bennett, Stanisław Aniołkowski, Marijn van den Berg, Jensen Plowright, Paul Magnier, Casper Van Uden, and others. Spirits were dampened at the start as the riders rolled out on the cobbled streets of Wrocław laden with rain jackets and shoe covers. Four riders got away in a group including Lars Boven of Alpecin-Deceuninck, Donavan Grondin of Arkéa-B&B Hotels, Nadav Raisberg of Israel-Premier Tech, and Patryk Stosz of the Polish National Team after just 2KM of racing. Raisberg came fourth in the first intermediate sprint and, having gotten nothing out of it, decided to sit up and go back into the peloton after just 20KM of racing. T-Rex Quickstep started chasing with help from Visma-Lease a Bike and Cofidis and kept the gap at a demoralizing 90 seconds to 2 minutes. At 160KM to go on a sweeping wet right turn, a large number of riders went down in a crash. No one looked particularly hurt and everyone was able to get rolling again. Ayco Bastiaens of Soudal Quickstep and Steven Kruijswijk of Visma-Lease continued to ride hard at the front of the peloton and the gap was down to 1 minute. Jacopo Mosca of Lid-Trek rider came up to tell them about the crash and they finally slowed down to allow the gap to go back up to around 2 minutes. After the last intermediate sprint with 60KM to go, Stosz dropped back to the peloton because the writing was on the wall that the finish would come down to a bunch sprint. The gap slowly wound down as Boven and Grondin hung out waiting to be caught. The catch was finally made with 38KM to go and teams immediately started to get into color order. The road was blocked through 25KM to go as teams pushed up to the front. The only mountains point came 18KM from the finish on barely a rise in the road. Bauke Mollema of Lidl-Trek jumped clear and snagged the point and will wear the mountains jersey tomorrow. Nerves continued to rise and the speed was way up with 8KM to go. Fortunately the roads had dried out and the run in was on reasonably wide roads. With the road being so wide, the bunch constantly was rotating through with teams coming up then getting swarmed and pushed back again. A crash with 1,800M to go right near the front disrupted the flow and strung the front out. Visma-Lease a Bike and Intermarché-Wanty led side by side through 1KM to go but it was Tim Torn Teutenberg of Lidl-Trek that opened up first after he hit the front a little too early with 325M to go. Ben Turner of Ineos was next to go with Jensen Plowright of Alpecin-Deceuninck on the wheel. With 150M to go however, Olav Kooij of Visma-Lease a Bike jumped from Plowright's wheel and came off like a rocket towards the finish line. Paul Magnier of T-Rex Quickstep pushed Kooij close but the speedy Dutchman got the win and the first leader's jersey of the race. Magnier took second place by half a bike to Kooij with Plowright holding on for third.