On Saturday, the Katowice time trial was supposed to establish the Tour de Pologne’s final general classification. Joao Almeida actually took advantage of it to secure his yellow jersey, while Romain Seigle, consistent since the start of the race, managed to enter the top-20 overall. On Sunday, the seventh and final stage should end with a sprint in Krakow.
Instead of the usual massive sprint that led to some serious talks last year, Katowice hosted a decisive 19-kilometer time trial on the Tour of Poland in this 2021 edition. Although many turns featured on the route, it was nonetheless one for specialists. “It was a very nice time trial,” said Frédéric Guesdon. “There were some long flat roads where you could deliver your full potential.” Clément Davy did just that, starting quite early, and setting the fourth provisional time at the finish. Less than two hours later, Romain Seigle was the last one to leave the ramp for Groupama-FDJ. The former mountain biker eventually obtained the best result of the day for the team, placing twenty-ninth fifty-seven seconds behind former French champion Rémi Cavagna. “I’m pretty happy with my time trial,” said Romain. “I think I had a rather good performance. Making it into the top thirty and being less than a minute away from the winner over twenty kilometers is pretty good”. “We weren’t expecting to win,” added Frédéric. “The most important thing was for the guys to do it properly. Romain was still in the mix overall and is in good shape. He had to do it full-gas, which is what he did and he got a decent place. Clement is a specialist and wanted to do it well thinking of the future. They made a solid performance”.
“A good general classification for me”, Romain Seigle
Romain Seigle also took advantage of this time trial to gain nine places overall, as he now sits 19th. “It’s not insignificant,” continued Frédéric. “The week was not too bad for me,” Romain confirmed. “I wanted to try not to lose too much time on every stage in order to achieve the best general classification possible. It didn’t go so bad with this top 20 after the time trial. I have certainly lost time on some stages due to a lack of experience and made 2-3 small mistakes. However, it still is a good general classification for me knowing that this is the first time that I went for it in a WorldTour event. You always hope for a little better, but it’s still good for the future and the end of the season. There is now only one stage left and we will try to do a good sprint with Jake to finish the week in a good way”. The Tour de Pologne will end in Krakow on Sunday, with a most likely sprint finish. “It’s going to be a fast day,” Frédéric concluded. “The stage is only 145 kilometers long and some teams will try to control for the sprint. Others will play their cards, and if some of our riders want to, we’ll try to enter some moves at the start. Nevertheless, we will especially focus on Jake for the sprint finish”.
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