Philip Deignan looking serious on the Tour of Poland where he has crashed twice this week. He's building form towards riding for Chris Froome at the Vuelta, starting in two weeks time (Photo: Stefano Sirotti)
By Gerard Cromwell
Philip Deignan continues his end of season campaign this week with a solid return to action at the Tour of Poland.
Having stayed within touching distance of the race leader on the flatter opening four stages, Deignan went into yesterday’s first mountain stage in 84th place overall, 37 seconds behind Czech race leader Petr Vakoc of Omega Pharma Quickstep.
Despite suffering his second crash of the week on the penultimate climb of the day, the Donegal man moved up to 29th place yesterday on a tough climbing stage that saw Tour de France king of the mountains winner Rafal Majka (Tinkoff Saxo) delight the crowd with a home victory.
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“I crashed on the same hip yesterday as I did on stage one but it’s fine,” said the Letterkenny man today.
“The road was covered in oil on the inside of a corner and I just started pedalling too soon coming out of it and my back wheel went from under me. I was only doing 5kph.”
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Another tough day of climbing today saw him hang onto the front group until the last kilometres, where Majka attacked again to take his second stage win and the race lead.
“I feel pretty good,” said Deignan after finishing 18th on today’s penultimate stage and moving up into the top 20 overall.
“I’m still missing some top end stuff here but that’s part of the plan. I’m still building up towards the Vuelta in two weeks so this race has been perfect preparation for that.”
The Tour of Poland finishes with a 25km individual time trial in Krakow tomorrow and the race against the clock may give Deignan one more chance to move up the overall standings before he lines up alongside team leader Chris Froome at the Vuelta a Espana on August 23rd.
“It’s going to be pretty exciting riding the Vuelta with Chris. I haven’t raced with him before but I hope to be able to help him in the mountains and I’m really looking forward to it.”
Deignan (leading) on the attack during the Giro in May, on his way to third place in the mountains of stage 18. A good Vuelta in support of Chris Froome would go a long way towards booking his place on the Tour de France next year.
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