August 9, 2026
All that is left of the 2026 Tour de Pologne is a 12.5 km Individual Time Trial just beyond the city limits of Kraków in Wieliczk. The first 1.7 km off the start ramp climbs at an average gradient of of 5.7% before gently rolling downwards on a clockwise loop to the finish just near the start in Park Adama Mickiewicza. The course flows nicely with very few technical corners so the speed should be quick. In 2025, Brandon McNulty took the ITT on this exact same course with a time of 14 minutes 31 seconds so we'll be watching for times around that marker. The GC is packed tightly at the top with the top four riders only separated by 11 seconds and the top eleven riders by 33 seconds. The race is finely balanced and it will come down to who can pull out a good ITT in a high pressure moment.
Race Summary
Light wind, perfectly clear skies, and pleasant Summer temperatures were on offer at the start and throughout the day. The best of the early riders to set off was Arthur Kluckers of Tudor Pro Cycling who put in a time of 14 minutes 35 seconds. British and American National ITT Champions, Ethan Hayter and Artem Schmidt each gave it their best but came up short of Kluckers' time.
A storming ride by Callum Thornley of Redbull-Bora Hansgrohe saw the young Scot take the hot seat by trimming the benchmark down to 14 minutes 29 seconds which looked like it might withstand the best riders to come. After a long time off due to a broken leg, Stefan Küng of Tudor Pro Cycling produced his best ITT is quite a while. The Swiss went through the intermediate 7 seconds faster than anyone else and was able to hold on to 4 seconds by the finish to overtake Thornley as the fastest rider across the distance.
When the top GC riders set off, the intermediate times started to fall. First, Iván Romeo of Movistar set the benchmark at 7 minutes 50 seconds but it wasn't long before Finn Fisher-Black of Redbull-Bora Hansgrohe put his stamp on the race by going 3 seconds quicker than that. Fisher-Black could not hold the pure speed needed to topple Küng for the stage but he was only 4 seconds down and best placed of all the GC riders who had finished to that point. Jan Christen of UAE-XRG was next in but the time needed to stay ahead of Fisher-Black in the GC had gone red. The same could not be said for Marco Brenner of Tudor Pro Cycling who had 10 seconds in hand by the time he crossed the finish line to take over the provisional GC lead.
Bart Lemmen and Louis Barré of Visma-Lease a Bike and Christian Scaroni of XDS-Astana all struggled during the time trial and Brenner watched on as the last few competitors fell away. When Scaroni crossed the line, he was well down in the order which meant Marco Brenner took top honors in his first GC win of a World Tour stage race. The results of the last few riders also solidified Stefan Küng as the stage winner with an average speed of 51.994 KM/HR in a dream finish for the Tudor Pro Cycling squad. Second on the stage was Fisher-Black with his Redbull-Bora Hansgrohe teammate Thornley in third.
The final GC was set with Marco Brenner winning the overall by 10 seconds to Finn Fisher-Black and 16 seconds to Iván Romeo who hung around for six days and capitalized with a solid ITT in his preferred discipline.