DISCUSSION Tour de Pologne Stage 1 | Is safety always an issue when racing in Poland?

The opening stage of the Tour de Pologne was one for the sprinters. The terrain was simply perfect to see a bunch sprint, and that is exactly what happened. Team Visma | Lease a Bike was the team to beat, featuring two of the peloton's most in-form sprinters, Olav Kooij and Matthew Brennan. Visma, together with Soudal, LIDL-Trek, and UAE, controlled the race very well from the beginning.

There was an early breakaway of four riders, which was soon reduced to three, but they never had any real hope of holding off the peloton. They were chased with 35 km to go, and the bunch sprint was inevitable. Olav Kooij was the winner of the opening stage, securing the leader jersey for at least one day.

The sprint finish was very chaotic, and the finale was very dangerous. Sadly, there was one crash during the final kilometeres, which affected riders like Sam Bennet.

Once the stage finished, we asked some of our writers to share their thoughts and main takeaways about what happened today.

Extremely dangerous finale. The riders have a say in it but I would expect a race that had only a few years ago a rider almost dying in a final sprint to do their very best to prevent that.

They did not. This was a very fast finale with several sketchy corners in the final kilometer. Adding to that pedals coming off, riders pushed against the barriers, some losing their pedals and Matthew Brennan doing a crazy move towards Fernando Gaviria made it a tense watch. Kooij was the strongest though and deserved the win.

A simple stage, ideal for opening the race. There was some fighting for the intermediate sprints by the escapees, but the sprinters' teams always kept a tight leash. Soudal controlled the whole day and had no train at the end. In a dangerous finish, it was Lidl-Trek's young Teutenberg who launched the sprint, but from a long way off.

The Brennan-Kooij pairing was perfect and the Dutchman shot to victory, his 4th consecutive winning season in Poland. Magnier was second and it looked like he had more speed than his rival, but he was badly placed. I expected more from Van Uden, Thijssen and Gaviria, all of whom fell outside the top 10. Also of note was a crash in the final kilometres, which didn't seem to be serious but did affect Sam Bennett.

Little to say on this first stage of the Tour of Poland 2025. A sprint finish was expected and so it was. Olav Kooij is the best sprinter on the list of participants, he was the favorite and he won. Matthew Brennan, as expected, is Kooij's launcher on the flat stages.

As for Movistar Team and Colombian cycling, a pity for Fernando Gaviria, who is living a very complicated season but here he had very good chances to fight for a good position until he was disturbed by Brennan in the final sprint. Of course, it goes without saying that he didn't mean to and that it's a racing incident, but it's still fucked up for Gaviria.

Very good also Paul Magnier, who at 21 years old proves in each race that he is part of the present and future of world cycling.

I think the only people who truly enjoy these kinds of flat stages are the sprinters themselves, and sometimes, not even them. Just ask Fabio Jakobsen, who suffered a horrific crash in this very race a few years ago, one that nearly cost him his life. It’s troubling that the Tour of Poland’s organizers haven’t taken more serious steps to improve rider safety after that incident, which exposed glaring flaws in race protection and logistics.

In the end, it feels like the only rider who truly enjoyed today’s stage was Olav Kooij, he stayed upright, avoided the crashes, and claimed the win. That makes it four editions in a row in which he’s taken at least one stage victory here, an impressive feat considering that he is just 23 years old.

The first 190 kilometers of the stage were completely uneventful, but this was not unexpected at all, given the pan-flat route that the riders had to face. At least we got to see a breakaway today, which made things a bit more entertaining for those of us who watched the entire stage.

I do think it's a good move by the organizers to include three intermediate sprints; it adds a bit of spice to otherwise uneventful stages. In a race as tightly contested as the Tour de Pologne, those 3-second time bonuses can become a valuable prize. I expect the fight for them to get more intense in the coming days, especially as the general classification starts to take shape.

Regarding the final sprint, I was impressed by Paul Magnier’s strength in the last meters. The Frenchman was not in a good position before the start of the sprint, but he somehow managed to find the gaps to sprint comfortably. It seems that the team’s new T-Rex jersey has given him extra energy to sprint.

I believe Visma will be a major player in this year’s Tour de Pologne. They've already secured a stage win and the leader’s jersey, but there's still one rider who has a lot left to show. Matthew Brennan has been one of the revelations of the season, and several stages ahead could suit his characteristics perfectly. We know he’s a complete rider, not just a sprinter, but someone who can handle some climbs as well. Let’s see what kind of show he and his team put on in the coming days. One can only hope today ends up being the dullest stage of the entire race.