14/08/2024

Thibau Nys wins stage 3 of the Tour de Pologne whilst Jonas Vingegaard saves yellow jersey

Thibau Nys has won the second out of three stages at the Tour de Pologne. The Lidl-Trek rider has put on a masterful sprint in the end of stage 3 to win in front of Diego Ulissi. Jonas Vingegaard was attacked, but kept the yellow jersey safe against his rivals.

Stage 3 of the Tour de Pologne was possibly the most threatening to Jonas Vingegaard after the Dane put on the yellow jersey the day before. It certainly did provide for some tense moments for Team Visma | Lease a Bike who were put under pressure. Jan Maas, Michal Paluta and Nicolas Debeaumarché attacked and formed the breakaway of the day, but they would later be joined by several riders.

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The hilly profile provided opportunity for attacks and this was used. With just under 90 kilometers to go there were a few attacks in the peloton and a group containing Pello Bilbao, Samuel Watson, Ben Turner, Andrea Bagioli, Pepijn Reinderink, Mick van Dijke and Hugo Houle set off. They reached the front of the race whilst Visma chased in the peloton.

Collaboration was not always perfect due to the strong rhythm imposed by a few riders, but they kept a gap of around a minute until the penultimate climb of the day. The lack of collaboration here however saw the gap thin down, specially as DSM accelerated behind and closed down the attack. Jonas Vingegaard attacked then, not having teammates with him and fearing being attacked himself en masse.

He managed to control things until the summit of the climb, and then Visma took over, with the peloton regaining riders and heading towards the final climb then. The final ascent was not long, but it did feature steep gradients close to the finale. No real team had numbers in the finale. The very steep gradients saw riders individually getting to the head of the peloton.

Diego Ulissi launched an early sprint, knowing of the very technical finale, but in the final straight he wasn't able to prevent the return of Thibau Nys who came from behind with a strong sprint and took his second stage win of the week. Wilco Kelderman spritned to third on the day.