Carapaz flies to victory and becomes the new GC leader

Richard Carapaz wins the third stage with a breathtaking sprint and becomes the leader of the general classification.

Today’s stage was the first day in which the territory changed shape, offering the peloton the first interesting climbs with seven Mountain Primes on the route.

The first part of the race  was characterised by an early breakaway with Quentin Jauregui, Kamil Gradek, Taco van der Hoorn and Patryk Stosz caught at -50 km. Nathan Hass was the real matador in the final circuit of Bielsko/Biala, caught by the peloton right before the last lap with Ineos and Deceuninck-Quick Step always at the front.

With 200 metres to go, Richard Carapaz whizzed out from the bunch, pulling out a breathtaking attack until the finish line and taking the win ahead of Diego Ulissi and Rudy Molard. Carapaz also gained 10 bonus seconds that allowed him to become the new leader of the GC with 4 seconds on Diego Ulissi and 6 seconds on Luka Mezgec.

Kamil Gradek is now the king of the mountain classification, and Luka Mezgec leads the sprint classification. Once again, Maciej Paterski is the most active rider of the day. Tomorrow the climbers will have another chance to attack in what promises to be a really demanding stage, featuring three first category climbs to be repeated three times.

‘Today it was a really fascinating stage featuring a very demanding parkour which ended with an explosion of emotions. All my congratulations to Richard Carapaz, today’s winner and new GC leader’ says Czeslaw Lang. ‘We also had some good news from the hospital in Sosnowiec, Fabio Jakobsen was awakened from the coma by the doctors. We all hope he gets well soon’ he concludes.

Winner and GC leader quote: I am super happy and it’s been a very special victory today. It’s been tense, and also coming back to racing after the uncertain moments the whole world has experienced makes it even more important. My team did an incredible job. We started pretty easy, as we knew it would be a challenging stage, and in the end, we started really working to get the result. I have to say the guys did a fantastic job so I could finish the best way possible. Tomorrow it’s going to be another important stage that will mark the final section of the Tour de Pologne, and probably decide the winner. To keep the leadership position will be important for sure.