CYCLING – TEAM Bahrain Victorious kick their campaign off today in the 81st Tour de Pologne in Poland.
Bahrain Victorious will take to the start as reigning champions after Matej Mohoric’s phenomenal overall victory last year. The Slovenian will be on the startlist again this year, and the team is at the seven-stage event with lofty ambitions again.
This is the only UCI World Tour race between the Tour de France and Vuelta a Espana, and always attracts a high-quality field of all kinds of top-class riders. The 2024 edition is no exception, which means the battle for both stage wins and classifications will be fierce.
Today’s opening stage is already a chance for the general classification (GC) contenders to put down a marker, as it finishes with a tough climb to Karpacz. This was the location for the finish of stage two in 2023, which saw Mohoric take the leg and the leader’s jersey, which he held on to until the end. The finish is slightly different this time: 7.2km at 4.3per cent, but gets steeper as it goes on. The last 1.3km averages 8.3 per cent with some sections as much as 10 per cent.
As well as Mohoric, who will be the leader again, Pello Bilbao will return to Poland, having finished on the podium on his only other participation in 2022. He is co-leader, and is aiming to return to form after sickness forced him to abandon the Tour de France last month.
Helping those two riders on the GC days will be Italian Edoardo Zambanini, who continues his impressive season and will add great value on the climbs. And with Zambanini comes the experience and cool head of home rider Łukasz Wisniowski.
Bahrain Victorious’ lead sports director for the week is Michal Golas, who commented: “The race is a bit harder this year compared to 2023. We have a couple of rolling stages with short, steep climbs, and stages one, three and six, plus the time trial, will be the important ones for GC.
“Matej is the defending champion from last year and he won it by a single second, so we know how important the bonus seconds can be.”
Other riders set to take part at this year’s race are Phil Bauhaus, Fred Wright, and Andrea Pasqualon.
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