Brilliant Archie Ryan puts in epic effort at Tour de Pologne | Video

Archie Ryan has gone on the attack at Tour de Pologne, putting in a brilliant solo effort in the final of a hard stage (Photo: Tomasz Smietana)

Archie Ryan (EF Education-EasyPost) left it all out on the road at Tour de Pologne today after striking out from the breakaway, when the road kicked up, with 17km to go on today's stage 5. His effort to win the day, on a very hard finale, went agonisingly close.

The 22-year-old, who was already a winner earlier this year at Coppi e Bartali (2.1) earlier this year, was in a class of his own when the lumpy finale began as the Visma-Lease a Bike team of race leader Jonas Vingegaard tried to close him down.

On the 183km stage from Wadowice to Bukovina Resort - including the late climb of the Bukovina Wall with pitches of 20 per cent - Ryan went clear a long way from the finish in a very strong breakaway.

Advertisement

He was with: Tim Wellens (UAE Team Emirates), Mick van Dijke (Team Visma | Lease a Bike), Samuele Battistella (Astana Qazaqstan Team), Silvan Dillier (Alpecin - Deceuninck), Tobias Foss (INEOS Grenadiers) and Davide Formolo (Movistar Team).

Ryan was among a number of counter-attackers who made it across to the initial small breakaway, making his move with about 50km to go.

Though that breakaway group only had about 40 seconds when Ryan made his move, and it looked like it was going to be a challenge to stay away, he set about that task with great purpose.

Up the steepest part of the climb, with just over 13km to go, the bunch sprint to pieces as Wilco Kelderman went on the front for Vingegaard and blew it apart. However, Ryan still had an advantage of 22 seconds as the brutally steep climb finally ended with just under 12km to go.

However, even after the official climb ended, and Ryan took the maximum points, a section of false flat continued. Ryan battled away through that section as Kelderman was proving a very dogged pursuer on behalf of his team leader and the rest of the select group, which began to get bigger as other riders made their way back on.

Related News

Ryan was nervously looking for his shoulder as he continued to lead the race solo, the other breakaway men long caught and dropped by the chasing group.

With 9km to go, Ryan had 21 seconds over the group and the outcome of the stage was still very much in the balance. Other teams, notably Bahrain Victorious, were now putting riders on the front of the chasing group in a bid to pull back the Irishman.

Those efforts began to pay off very quickly as the gap to Ryan up front was gradually closing and down to 10 seconds with just 3km to go.

At that point, Romain Bardet took charge on the front of the large chasing group, going very hard for his Team dsm-firmenich PostNL team mate Oscar Onley, catching Ryan with just 2.5km to go.

In the end, it was Thibau Nys (Lidl Trek) who pounced from the group on the uphill sprint, taking his third win of the week and his ninth of the season. Diego Ulissi (UAE Team Emirates) was 2nd, with Onley 3rd and Vingegaard in 4th, to maintain the race leader.

Ryan hung in very well in the group when he was caught just inside the 2.5km marker and was only tailed off the back when the road kicked up to the line and the sprint began.

Related News