Australian youngster Jack Haig took his first WorldTour win Thursday at stage 6 in Tour of Poland. The 23-year-old soloed to victory in Zakopane. Sky’s Wout Poels was second behind the Orica-Scott rider, out-sprinting a group of 11. Bob Jungels (Quick-Step) finished third on the day.
“It was also nice to show all the hard work that I’ve put in over the last couple of years and especially the past couple of weeks training in Andorra preparing for this and the Vuelta,” said Haig.
Although BMC’s Dylan Teuns finished last out of the 11-man chase group, he assumed the overall race lead with one stage to go.
Stage 6, top five
1. Jack Haig (AUS/ORS), in 4h58:55
2. Wout Poels (NED/SKY), at 00:51.
3. Bob Jungels (LUX/QST), s.t.
4. Rui Alberto Faria da Costa (POR/UAD), s.t.
5. Wilco Kelderman (NED/SUN), s.t.
Top-five overall
1. Dylan Teuns (BEL/BMC), in 23h41:27
2. Rafal Majka (POL/BOR), at 0:06.
3. Wilco Kelderman (NED/SUN), at 0:10.
4. Wout Poels (NED/SKY), at 00:13.
5. Pozzovivo Domenico (ITA/ALM), at 00:18.
World champion Peter Sagan lost significant time and the yellow jersey, which he’s worn since stage 3. His Bora-Hansgrohe teammate, Rafal Majka, moved up to second-place overall. Poland’s Majka was eighth on the day and six seconds behind Teuns overall after stage 6. Sunweb’s Wilco Kelderman slotted into third overall, 10 seconds back.
Haig attacked a small front group inside of the final 20 kilometers of the hilly 189km race. He went over the final categorized climb alone with about 10km remaining.
“Ruben Plaza started it off, followed by Rob Power and they set it all up well as the group reduced even more leaving Haig and Yates in the front,” said Orica-Scott director Dave McPartland. “Once Jack had a gap, Yates did an awesome job behind covering all the moves, but Jack showed today he had the legs and the engine to finish it off.”
The second-year pro nursed a lead of a little under one minute in the closing kilometers and came home alone.
Teuns won’t rest easy ahead of Friday’s final stage. The 132.5-kilometer race around Bukowina Tatrzanska has six categorized climbs plus an uphill finish. The top-10 riders are all within 30 seconds of each other, so the overall victory will be on the line.
“Tomorrow, we have the final stage of the race and it will be wide open because of the bonus seconds,” Majka said. “It will be very hard, with everybody trying to win. Today it was more a question of tactics, tomorrow will be fast, with many attacks.”
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