Place Name: Tadeusza Kościuszki
Address: Tadeusza Kościuszki 202, 34-530 Bukowina Tatrzańska, Lesser Poland Voivodeship, Poland
Details: August 9, 2025
Other than the ITT tomorrow, today is the last real chance for anyone to get ahead and make an impact on the race. Fortunately for the riders, there is plenty of opportunity to do so. At 147KM, Stage 6 is the shortest road stage of the race but there are six categorized Sciana's (walls in Polish) as well as the final climb to the finish Bukowina Tatrzańska. The stage is comprised of three laps of a single counter-clockwise loop. The climbing begins right out of the gate with the 1.8KM, 7.9% climb of Sciana Harnas which is 12% for the first 800M before gently leveling off. The Sciana Bukowina is the other climb on the circuit at 2.5KM at 8%. Like the Sciana Harnas, there is a brutally steep section in the middle for 900M that averages over 13%. Each of these climbs is done three times with the Sciana Bukowina coming last, 12KM before the finish. With 5KM to go, the riders exit the circuit to finish in the village of Bukowina Tatrzańska after a 1.8KM climb at nearly 8%.
Timo Kielich of Alpecin-Deceuninck forced the break right from the start and was able to take more mountains points as the leader of that classification, moving him closer to mathematically securing it. A group of seven riders was with him but the GC group came across and shut it down. Kielich attacked again on the descent and got a gap but the peloton was very active behind. Another group bridged up to Kielich which including Chris Hamilton of Picnic-PostNL, Olav Kooij and Matthew Brennan of Visma-Lease a Bike, Enzo Paleni of Groupama-FDJ, Lorenzo Milesi of Movistar, Paul Magnier of T-Rex Quickstep, Nadav Raisberg of Israel-Premier Tech, and Reuben Thompson of Lotto. The peloton shut down and the gap quickly rose to over 1 minute.
EF-Education EasyPost seemed disappointed to have missed the break and were riding hard in the peloton. They got the gap down to 30 seconds when Marijn van den Berg jumped away with Colby Simmons. They bridged up with 114.5KM to go and the gap was allowed to reestablish to 1 minute 20 seconds with 110KM to go. The Sciana Bukowina came and went without much activity as Bahrain Victorious and UAE-XRG were setting a controlling pace behind.
The race was closing in coming into the final lap with 48KM to go. The gap was down to 40 seconds with Bahrain Victorious chasing quite hard so Simmons attacked the break to pull out the advantage as far as he could manage. Bahrain Victorious hit the Sciana Harnas hard from the bottom and caught the break, including Simmons, halfway up. The race split over the top with about 20 riders together without race leader Paul Lapeira. The front group swelled on the descent to around 40 riders. Bahrain Victorious reorganized on the flat road heading towards the final ascent of the Sciana Bukowina. Lapeira and others made their way back into the peloton during what was the last moments of calm.
Jan Maas of Cofidis tried to get a head start on the bunch with 26KM to go before the Sciana Bukowina but the peloton ramped up the speed to get into position and Maas was pulled back after just 1KM off the front. The final intermediate sprint came at 18KM to go and with 3, 2, and 1 seconds available and no break up the road, the GC guys went for it. Brandon McNulty and Jan Christen of UAE-XRG took first and third with Antonio Tiberi of Bahrain Victorious sneaking in between for second place. A counter attack came from Simmons again, this time with Gijs Leemreize of Picnic-PostNL on his wheel but the bunch was having none of it and they were quickly drawn back in.
The front group started to shred as the road ramped up on the Sciana Bukowina under the pressure of Rafal Majka of UAE-XRG. As hard as the climb was, at least 15 riders were still in contact as the gradients eased near the top. Tiberi squeezed on and was followed by McNulty and Filippo Zana of Jayco AlUla but the group was together again at the top with 12KM to go. UAE-XRG were the only team with numbers and they decided to set a pace into the final climb up to Bukowina Tatrzańska. Rudy Molard of Groupama-FDJ went on the attack with Quinten Hermans of Alpecin-Deceuninck on the short valley road between the Sciana Bukowina and the final climb. They got a handful of seconds but once again, the group was back together with 7.5KM to go.
Majka rode on the front through the start of the climb until just outside of 2KM to go when Christen made his move which opened the race. Christen was caught then Tiberi tried once more, followed by McNulty and Matthew Riccitello of Israel-Premier Tech. Inside the final kilometer, McNulty counter attacked and had Tiberi on his wheel with a gap to the rest of the group. Tiberi blew up and drifted backwards but McNulty had a new threat for the stage win in the shape of Victor Langellotti of Ineos. The Monegasque rider shot out of the chase and did a 500M sprint, passed McNulty and through the finish line for a win in incredible style. Pello Bilbao of Bahrain Victorious led the chase in for third place, 7 seconds behind Langellotti and McNulty.
With Lapeira being dropped and the 10 second time bonus for the win, Langellotti assumes the race lead by 7 seconds on McNulty and 20 seconds to Tiberi with just a 12.5KM ITT tomorrow to come.
Tags: Tour de Pologne, 2025, August, Stage 6, Tour de Pologne 2025, Bukowina, Timo Kielich, Chris Hamilton, Olav Kooij, Matthew Brennan, Enzo Paleni, Lorenzo Milesi, Paul Magnier, Nadav Raisberg, Reuben Thompson, Marijn van den Berg, Colby Simmons, Jan Maas, Brandon McNulty, Jan Christen, Antonio Tiberi, Gijs Leemreize, Rafal Majka, Filippo Zana, Rudy Molard, Quinten Hermans, Matthew Riccitello, Victor Langellotti, Pello Bilbao