The early break in the 242-kilometer fourth stage of Tour de Pologne turned out to be a little bit too threatening,
so many teams had to work hard together with the other teams to catch up.
Murilo Fischer (Liquigas) and the strong time
trial specialist Sebastian Lang (Gerolsteiner) were the two in the break and because of the length of the stage they
were given a lot of room to roam along the way.
"At one point they had a lead of over 20 minutes so we decided to help
out. The sprinter teams each sent one guy along to catch them and we and Lampre did the same, so in the end we managed to
reel them back in," explained CSC sports director Alain Gallopin after the stage.
The bunch sprint was ruined after
a heavy crash in the finale that had Graeme Brown (Rabobank) , Gerald Ciolek (T-Mobile), and Wouter Weylandt (Quickstep) as
its most prominent victims. Ciolek hit a barrier twice and he slipped after that. Graeme Brown (picture) was close
behind him and he could not avoid the German; the familiar domino-effect took place after that. Danilo Napolitano was ahead
of the slipping and sliding and was the first one to pass the finish. He is also the new leader.
Rabobank sports director Frans Maassen expects Brown will appear at the start on Thursday. "He is tough as
a rock. My first thought was ‘we are going to have to scrape him off the road,’ but now he is here on the bus
watching the finale on video. Scraped and everything. He will probably have a bad night but I know him by now and I am sure
he will be back on Thursday," told Maassen 45 minutes after the incident-filled finale.
Maasen was outraged, however, about the responses of some riders who had blamed the Australian immediately
after finishing. "Total nonsense,” grumbled Maassen. "I saw the sprint and also watched it attentively on video. This
was not Graeme’s fault. Ciolek just hit a barrier. They cannot expect Brown to fly over him. No one could ever have
avoided Ciolek in this situation. But I do know where it comes from. Brown has a reputation of being a cowboy. This just proves
how hard it is to shake that."
According to the T-Mobile team website Ciolek hit an arm of a spectator. "Gerald has some bruising and cuts
over the eyebrow and upper lip. We hope it looks worse than it really is," said T-Mobile sports director Jan Schaffrath,
"if he hadn’t fallen so close to the finish line, he would have found a safer landing place. In view of our last few
weak days, that is a pity."
