Tour of Poland 2014 – Stage 7 Preview

By David Hunter

Stage 6 Recap

Yet again, Majka delivered. Oliver Zaugg did a great job for him and he attacked with 3km to go. Izagirre was the only one who could follow but he blew not long afterwards. Thankfully, Intxausti was going well and provided a wheel to follow. Majka continued on for the stage win, but only gained 8 seconds on the Spaniards. I think he wanted more! He moves into the yellow jersey but with the TT coming, his lead looks slim.

Stage 7 Krakow – Krakow 25km 

It’s TT time!

The GC will be settled by this flat 25km individual time trial.

Last year, it was Pieter Weening who surprised everyone to take the overall win. The TT was won by Wiggins, in front of Cancellara and Phinney. That course had longer hills, but finished in the same city. The final 3km is a real leg killer.

A long false flat to end a 25km TT is going to hurt, especially after two difficult days in the hills.

Going out last can often help riders but it didn’t help Riblon last year, as he spectacularly blew.

Only four corners in 25km of riding, means this is one for the powerful riders. They can get it into their biggest gear and grind away.

The good news is that the weather forecast is for sun and no wind, all riders will get a fair crack of the whip. So who are the favourites?

Unlike in 2013, the big TT riders are not here. This leaves the door open for the other riders. Of these Adriano Malori is the stand-out rider.

He won the TT in San Luis and Tirreno, before winning his national TT championship. Add in, his 2nd place in Algarve and Malo is the big favourite.

Next in line is Kristof Vandewalle. The Trek rider is fresh from winning the Tour of Austria TT, on a flat course. That day he beat Sergent by 15 seconds, averaging 51.9km/h. Despite having won his national championship, three years running, this was his first every TT win. Can he maintain his progression?

Anton Vorobyev is a former under 23 world TT champion. He won the Russian TT championship, earlier this year. He beat Vandewalle by 21 seconds in the Bayern-Rundfahrt TT, but that was on a hillier course.

Out of the other riders, only two have won TTs this season: Steve Cummings in Tour de Med and Tobias Ludvigsson in Etoile de Besseges. Both these results were at the start of the season.

We do have some inconsistent riders here too: Cataldo, Velits, Jungels, Poels, De Gendt, Weening, Brambilla, EBH and Intxausti. You can never guarantee what these riders will produce.

Out of the GC riders, Ion Izagirre has the best pedigree. This season he was 5th in the Romandie TT and 8th in Suisse. Both of these results were very good, easily beating a lot of the riders here. Although, he is yet to achieve a top 10 in a grand tour TT.

Don’t overlook Robert Gesink! In his early career his TT results were poor but started to improve from 2011, where he was 7th in Pais Vasco and 9th in Tirreno. He continued this improvement in 2012 with 6th place in Murcia, 4th in California and 12th in the Vuelta. In 2013, he didn’t have the best of times but still took 11th in the Giro TT. Now that he has his health problems behind him, he should be able to get back to his TT best.

The GC classification is finely poised:-

1. Majka

2. Intxausti 18 secs

3. Izagirre 20 secs

4. Riblon 39 secs

5. Caruso 40 secs

6. Gesink 40 secs

7. Barguil 40 secs

8. Niemiec 40 secs

9. Brambilla 46 secs

10. Rutkiewicz 47 secs

It seems that any of the top 3 can win this race. I would say Izagirre is the best in the TT, but he’s not brilliant. His results this season have been better than Intxausti, but on his day, Benat, can go very well. Rafal Majka is no slouch in the TT either. He was, a surprise, 4th in the first Giro TT this year, but 33rd in Romandie. That day in Romandie, Izagirre put 55 seconds into Majka. That was over 18.5km, on a fairly flat course, apart from a 2km climb.

In the closing TT last year, only 12 seconds separated the two men. That course was 37km and much lumpier than this one.

Izagirre will have the split times of Malori to try and follow, but Majka will know what he has to do, to beat him. It’s going to be a great race to watch.

I don’t expect much from Riblon, his big chance was last year!

Prediction time…

We have a race with 1 clear specialist, Malori. He will win fairly easily.

Vandewalle should be second. The big battle will be for third place and the GC. The way I see it, Izagirre is better than both Majka and Intxausti and by enough time to claim the jersey. Behind them, they’ll need to keep one eye on Gesink, as he has the capability to fly round the course. He could easily move into third place overall, and go close to second.

David Hunter

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