Another day in the Polish hills awaited the peloton this afternoon at the Tour de Pologne, as they took on a 178 kilometre long route from Łańcut to Rzeszów. Despite the hilly nature, today’s stage on paper was easier than yesterday’s so another bunch sprint was expected unless a strong break could go clear.

It was a fast start to the action with a lot of attacks in the early proceedings, which the team covered well, before eventually an eight rider move broke the elastic and forged on out front. Their advantage peaked at almost five minutes but throughout the afternoon it slowly dwindled and despite a valiant effort, the remnants of the move were caught in the closing five kilometres. Working well together throughout the stage, the team kept GC finisher Thymen Arensman safe before fully focusing their attention to positioning Nikias Arndt for the sprint finale. Last lead out man Niklas Märkl brought Arndt into position in the final three kilometres, towards the front of the peloton. Due to the good positioning, Arndt managed to avoid a crash in the closing kilometre, before producing a great turn of speed to take a strong third place at the line.

“It was another hilly stage today,” explained Arndt. “A group went away and the GC teams started controlling alongside some sprint teams. Our goal again was to get Thymen safely to the finish and not lose any time. That went really well and the team did a great job at that. From three kilometres on we focused on setting me up for the sprint with some good support by the guys and I could follow the wheels. Luckily we avoided the crash and got a nice third place, but I’m just not quick enough to go for the the win there, but still I’m pretty happy with the third place today.” 

Team DSM coach Luke Roberts added: “The stage today had some potential to be a tough one but a break quickly formed and we had a relatively controlled stage. In the final we wanted to bring Thymen in safe and set Nikias up for a sprint. Despite a big crash the team could manage both goals and Nikias finished it off with a third place on the stage.”