Luka Mezgec (Mitchelton-Scott) upset the odds by beating some of the best sprinters in the world in a frantic finish to stage two of the Tour of Poland.
As the race reached two laps to go the gap of the breakaway was back down to 1’30” as the sprint teams looked to measure their efforts with the duo coming into sight heading onto the final lap.
The fight for position was on as the peloton raced through the technical closing kilometres, with cobbles and road furniture to negotiate.
The downhill run for the line made for a frantic finale and as riders hesitated Mezgec dived for a gap and opened up the sprint. The move forced a reaction for the sprinters, but it was too late and Mezgec stormed across the line to take a famous win by more than a bike length.
“It feels good. I’ve been trying for a while to win again in a WorldTour race, I haven’t had many chances with all the sprinters we have in the team”, said Mezgec.
“But in Poland, many times I was second, third, fourth, top-five and this time it came all together. Everything came together, I was totally on the left then I started sprinting moving towards the right and then I saw Gaviria, he actually gave me a bit of a slingshot.”
Gaviria once again a bit too early in the downhill sprint. Mezgec comes through to take it. Richeze (joining in 2020) would’ve been ideal for Gaviria there – leading out and then dropping through the middle #TDP2019 pic.twitter.com/wvmjN735Ql
— Daniel Ostanek (@LVCKV) August 4, 2019
Tour of Poland 2019 – stage 2 results (Tarnowskie Góry – Katowice):
| 1 | Luka Mezgec (Mitchelton-Scott) | 2:57:58 |
| 2 | Fernando Gaviria (UAE Team Emirates) | ,, |
| 3 | Pascal Ackermann (Bora-hansgrohe) | ,, |
| 4 | Danny van Poppel (Jumbo-Visma) | ,, |
| 5 | Marc Sarreau (Groupama-FDJ) | ,, |
| 6 | Maximilian Walscheid (Team Sunweb) | ,, |
| 7 | Sacha Modolo (EF Education First) | ,, |
| 8 | Clement Venturini (AG2R La Mondiale) | ,, |
| 9 | Matej Mohoric (Bahrain-Merida) | ,, |
| 10 | Enzo Wouters (Lotto Soudal) | ,, |
Tour of Poland 2019 – general classification after stage 2:
| 1 | Pascal Ackermann (Bora-hansgrohe) | 6:30:26 |
| 2 | Charles Planet (Novo Nordisk) | +01” |
| 3 | Fernando Gaviria (UAE Team Emirates) | +02” |
| 4 | Luka Mezgec (Mitchelton-Scott) | +04” |
| 5 | Pawel Franczak (Poland) | +06” |
| 6 | Jakub Kaczmarek (Poland) | +07” |
| 7 | Fabio Jakobsen (Deceuninck-Quick-Step) | +10” |
| 8 | Ben Swift (Team Ineos) | +12” |
| 9 | Quentin Jauregui (AG2R La Mondiale) | ,, |
| 10 | Matej Mohoric (Bahrain-Merida) | +13” |
