Was a Tour of Poland of the first times. After saying that Joao almeida – winner (in the opening with the organizer Lang) who took full loot with two stages and the general classification ahead of Mohoric and Kwiatkowski – in Krakow, in the seventh and final stage which winked at the sprinters, it was the turn of Julius Van den Berg of the EF Education-NippoAnd what a victory, the first of his career after having come close to it in August 2018 as a trainee (again with EF) by finishing second at the fifth stage of the BinckBank Tour. The 24-year-old Dutchman outpaced his three teammates in the long breakaway (in order Renard of Israel Start Up, Jorgenson of Movistar and our Moscon (of the Ineos Grenadiers) with the group who, having made a bad calculation during the three laps of the city circuit, finished just a handful of metres behind them.
At the end of the awards ceremony we approached Czeslaw “Cesare” Lang, director of the race, to hear his impressions.
Cesare, we ask you to give us an overview of this 78th Tour de Pologne.
It's definitely positive, we've all seen that we have prepared a nice raceIt was seven days of beautiful stages with new routes and above all very safe arrivals thanks to these new Boplan barriersAnd then the new milestone, more technological and multimedia than in previous years. We have everything that other races in the world have in Poland.
Then you added your own touch.
What we did a little more was put your heart into preparing everything, for the safety of the riders, for all the people distributed along the route to guard the intersections. There is another aspect that I really liked.
Polonia is a street party, the hype of the organization is widespread New routes and unique campaigns for this year's edition: a wonderful discovery.
Polonia is a street party, the hype of the organization is widespread New routes and unique campaigns for this year's edition: a wonderful discovery.
Tell us.
That everyone the riders arrived motivatedAll the teams came prepared and they fought at every stageAnd we also saw how hard-fought it was on the last day in Krakow, with the breakaway just managing to arrive in time with the group closing in on them.
Some had said the Tour de Pologne route was easy. In the end, however, it was quite close, decided by a time trial by just a few seconds with a fine winner. And the final stage also had a thrilling finale that was the icing on the cake for the spectators.
Yes, this ending was so beautiful, emotional. To tell the truth, there was a struggle at every stage, every day was difficult with some great finishes.I think we managed to have a really good race and the riders and team were satisfied. Then we had a great atmosphere. And finally, I repeat, we have been careful about safety, we have improved it.
You, who pedaled the race roads every morning and personally tested every stage, do you already have something new in mind for next year?
I'll tell you that I'm already 90 percent done, I've already tried them all on my bike. I can tell you in advance that We will return to Bukovina but with a very different arrival, with a very nice and hard wall. The rest is top secret.
You won the Tour de Pologne in 1980. Would Cesare Lang have won this edition easily or with difficulty?
It's very difficult to say. When I won it there were 12 stages and it wasn't easy.At that time the race was for amateurs and teams like Russia or Germany were very strong and to win a race you had to be at the top. I was in great shape and Ten days after winning Poland I went to the Olympics and won silver (behind the legendary Soviet Sergei Sukhoruchenkov and ahead of the Bulgarian Yuri Barinov, ed.) on a very tough course.
So can we say that those who performed well in this Tour de Pologne can copy you and aim for some important jerseys between now and the end of the season?
Yes, that's right (Lang says smiling, ed.). They can absolutely win them.
