Director’s report from Johnny Weltz:
The first stage was an atypical stage as it was a circuit race in the capital Warsaw — usually the way to finish a big stage race. We had a plan to get an easy start as the next 4 days are more than 210km each day!
On the easy circuit the first real break of two riders went quiet early, just 15km into the race. They got an easy 5 minutes before the field started to chase. They slowely brought it back without too many difficulties, and with 15 km to go it was a compact field — a bunch sprint for sure.
We planned that Chris Sutton was taken care of in the sprint today and he looked for the best wheel. He indeed did a good job and sprinted to a nice sixth spot in the large 160 rider field. Because of the bonus on the road he is in the 11th spot on GC, behind the earlier breakaway. For the rest of our guys it was a really easy going into racing again day. Tomorrow it’s a flat day again.
