A strong start for the young Frenchman at the World Tour seven-day race.
Paul Magnier scored his tenth top-three finish of the season, at the end of the mammoth opening stage, one of the longest seen this year at World Tour level. The peloton had to face a total distance of 234 kilometers, which separated Gdynia from Koszalin - where the race returned for the first time in 24 years - but the day had no other difficulties.
Ayco Bastiaens was the man designated by T-Rex Quick-Step to control the gap of the five-man breakaway, and the Belgian did again a flawless work for hours and hours. By the time his job was done, the escapees had only a handful of seconds left, a deficit which the bunch easily erased before the lead-out trains formed.
Magnier, who is back at the Tour de Pologne after last year’s successful maiden outing, showed a good turn of speed to take runner-up just behind Jonathan Milan (Lidl-Trek) and sign off the team’s first podium of the month.
“The team worked hard the entire day and I want to thank them for that. It was really hectic in the final kilometers, I had to brake at one point and lost a bit of speed, but I’m glad that I could still manage to be on the podium. There are two chances left and we remain confident we can fight for a win here”, Paul said after the stage.
Photo credit: ©Luc Claessen / Getty Images
