Majka wins again to lead Tour of Poland

Rafal Majka (Tinkoo-Saxo) won for second day in a row at the Tour of Poland, and moves into the overall lead.

Previous leader Petr Vakoc (Omegas Pharma-Quick Step) drops down to eleventh overall, after he was dropped on the final climb to ultimately lose 48 seconds.

Majka made his race winning move with just over two kilometres to go. After good work from teammate Oliver Zaugg had thinned out the bunch on the final climb, Majka put in a committed attack. Movistar’s Jon Izagirre was the only rider able to stay with him, and even he sat up a few metres later as Majka maintained a relentless pace.

Izagirre did, however, manage to limit his losses to just ten seconds, as teammate Benat Intxausti caught back up to him and pace him up to the summit. This Spanish pair now lie 18 and 22 seconds respectively behind Majka on the GC, and look like the Pole’s main rivals heading into tomorrow’s deceive time trial.

A dozen other riders finished around  twenty seconds down, but look a little too far behind Majka to threaten for the overall lead, with Christophe Riblon in fourth at 39 seconds.

Majka had in fact made his first move on the penultimate climb of the day, and managed to force a selection of around five riders towards the top. But the Pole showed visible signs of frustration as the rest of his escapees showed no interest in working with him as a group, and they were all eventually caught on the descent.

Petr Vakoc put up a spirited fight for the yellow jersey and, despite being dropped from the peloton on the penultimate climb, managed to re-join at the bottom of the descent. The Czech rider had evidentially expelled a lot of energy doing so, however, and was dropped immediately as the road went upwards again.

Earlier, a lively start to the day eventually saw an 8-man group breakaway, featuring Christian Meier (Orica-GreenEdge, Damiano Caruso (Cannondale), Maciej Paterksi (CCC), Sergey Chernetski (Katusha), Alexis Vuillermoz (Ag2r), Sergey Lagutin (RusVelo), Johannes Frohlinger (Giant-Shimano) and Davide Malacarne (Europcar). They were never given much leeway from the Tinkoff-led peloton, however, and were all reeled with over 20km left to ride.

Result

2014 Tour of Poland, stage six

1. Rafal Majka’s (Pol) Tinkoff-Saxo in 4-40-58

2. Benat Intxausti (Spa) Movistar at 0-10

3. Jon Izagirre (Spa) Movistar at st

4. Christophe Riblon (Fra) Ag2r at 0-19

5. Przemyslaw Niemiec (Pol) Lampre at 0-20

6. Wouter Poels (Ned) Omega Pharma-Quick Step

7. Warren Barguil (Fra) Giant-Shimano

8. Robert Gesink (Nor) Belkin

9. Giampaolo Caruso (Ita) Katusha all at st

10. Gianluca Brambilla (Ita) Omega Pharma-Quick Step at 0-26

Overall Classification after stage six

1. Rafal Majka’s (Pol) Tinkoff-Saxo in 29-46-17

2. Benat Intxausti (Spa) Movistar at 0-18

3. Jon Izagirre (Spa) Movistar at 0-22

4. Christophe Riblon (Fra) Ag2r at 0-39

5. Giampaolo Caruso (Ita) Katusha at 0-40

6. Robert Gesink (Ned) Belkin

7. Warren Barguil (Fra) Giant-Shimano

8. Przemyslaw Niemiec (Pol) Lampre all at st

9. Gianluca Brambilla (Ita) Omega Pharma-Quick Step at 0-46

10. Marek Rutkiewicz (Pol) CCC at 0-47

Rafal Majka gives home crowd something to cheer