Dylan Sunderland has jumped up to 8th overall after taking 4th on stage two of the Tour of Małopolska in a bunch sprint from a small group. Other riders in the GC fight lost some time with race leader Calzoni (Gallina) losing three seconds and third overall after stage one, Quaedvlieg (UWTC) losing 54 seconds.
It was an extremely hectic start to the day. James Mitri went in one of the early breaks and managed to gain a gap of 1’10” but the group was seen as too dangerous and there were multiple counter moves behind so it was brought back after a brilliant effort by James.
The breakaway was finally formed when there was around 75km to go with our resident Fin, Ukko Peltonen getting into the break along with Sowiński (Voster) and Tsarenko (Gallina) joining him. They were both dangerous in GC with Sowiński just 15 seconds down.
However, this did not stop the gap going out to 4’40” with 40km to go with it looking possible for a breakaway victory. Unfortunately, Tsarenko had been told not to work with Ukko and Sowiński and so they tired themselves out. Tsarenko tried a late move but the stage went to Sowiński’s team-mate Patryk Stozs.
Tomorrow is the 3rd and final stage of the Tour of Małopolska with Dylan in a brilliant position to go for the possible win on the summit finish on Stary Sacz at almost 1200 metres.
Sadly, Xeno Young had to abandon the stage but he is in good spirits and is keen to help the team in any way he can tomorrow.
Ukko Peltonen – “Today was a hard day with a hectic start including a lot of attacks. Finally I found my way to the breakaway and really worked to make it to the finish. The team rode well for the whole day and we can be happy about Dylan’s fourth place. Tomorrow we will give everything that we have left in our legs to help Dylan make it.“
Director Sportif, Florent Horeau – “Today the day went as I had imagined, there was a long battle for the breakaway. We wanted to put a rider at the front of the race and James was first to try for 30km, then it was Ukko who managed to take the good breakaway of the day.
“I believed for a long time in the possibility that this group would battle for the stage victory but unfortunately one of the members in the group did not want to collaborate.
“They were caught with 1.5km to go and Dylan then proved that he can also be very fast in a nervous and fast final by finishing 4th in the sprint. Tomorrow is the ‘Queen Stage’ of this race and we will do everything to bring back an excellent result.“
Image by Brian Hodes/CorVos