Team Sky’s Serge Henao has won the 72nd Tour Of Poland sixth stage.
With Bart De Clerq of Lotto Soudal in the lead by four seconds after victory on stage five, stage six looked more like a cardiogram screen you would see in a hospital with seven climbs on a 174km stage which started in Bukovina Terma Hotel Spa and finished in Bukowina Tatrzańska.
Kiserlovski, Kwiatkowski, Meersman, Lutsenko, Henao, Santaromita, Samoilau and Rutkiewicz, were the first to break taking a small lead before the world champion in Michal Kwiatkowski went off on his own, leaving the rest to be caught by the peloton.
The Pole did not stay away for very long as he was quickly joined by a group of fourteen riders in Elissonde, Paterski, Mihaylov, Rutkiewicz, Marczynski, Poljanski, Golas, Brambilla, Lutsenko, Teuns, Vorganov, Domont & Morabito, who had a lead of 45 seconds.
Kwiatkowski took the first KOM climb but it was Paterski who took the second before more joined to form a group which now consisted of Elissonde, Paterski, Mihaylov, Marczynski, Santaromita, Teuns, Vorganov, G Bennett, Van der Lijke, Bonnafond, Domont, Morabito, Poljanski, Kwiatkowski, Golas, Brambilla, Rosa, Boswell, Niemiec and Atapuma.
Kwiatkowski attacked again, this time with Maciej Paterski who had taken the third climb and they were 3.05 ahead with 95kms left.
Less than twenty kilometres later and Kwiatkowski and Paterski were caught by the group which had dropped Atapuma and Theuns.
Bram Tankink took the fifth climb after breaking away and taking a lead of 1.15 and then the sixth climb with just over forty kilometres to go.
Tankink was caught and Diego Rosa took the points on the seventh and final climb as the front group started to be persued by a group of around 25 riders including the race leader.
The final climb of the day was the Gliczarów and Lawson Craddock of Giant Alpecin tried to make a break for it. However, with two kilometres to go, Serge Henao of Team Sky put in an attack and he stayed clear to win in a time of 4.38.27, seven seconds ahead of Diego Ullisi and eight seconds ahead of Lawson Craddock.
The win gave Henao the lead going into the final time trial and his Sports Directoe Dario Cioni: "Everyone did their jobs perfectly today and it's even more nice when you see the team leader finish it off with a win," said Sports Director Dario Cioni. "It's especially nice to see Sergio do that after all the ups and downs he's had in the last year.
"Each rider played an important role. We knew we didn't want to work until later, so with Ian in the break that was perfect. When we worked we wanted to make it really hard, and Ian, Salva and Philip did a good job there. Mikel must be feeling really good because on courses that are not perfect for him he was up there making a lot of people chase.
"Maybe for GC it didn't quite work out as we'd hoped. The race has not been as selective as we'd wanted but certainly Sergio will give it his all in the time trial tomorrow. Even Mikel, with the way he has been riding, he can do a good time trial. It will be interesting to see where they both end up. I wouldn't say they are favourites for tomorrow and the gaps are not very big back to some good time trialists.
"But we're happy to have taken the win and hopefully Kiry can have a good go tomorrow depending on how he is feeling. I'm sure both Sergio and Mikel if they can both finish top 10 on GC here in Poland that is a pretty good result."