Mirco Lorenzetto won the fourth stage of the Tour of Poland from Tychy to Cieszyn over 178 kilometers, ahead of his Lampre-Farnese teammate Grega Bole. Third place went to defending champion Alessandro Ballan. Lorenzetto took over the leader's jersey with his win, taking it off the shoulders of Allan Davis (Astana). Lorenzetto now leads Bole by seven seconds, with Ballan another second behind.
The directeur sportif of the Lampre squad, Fabrizio Bontempi, was pleased after the double victory. "Today I am very happy with my team! We rode well and with great determination." When the break was away there was a bit of discussion amongst the Lampre team whether to chase or not. "I had a determined response from the boys [Lorenzetto and Bole], who finished off the work from their teammates in the best possible way."
The Italian squad was celebrating the win and race lead. "We are happy for Lorenzetto, who focused on victory and the leader's jersey. Tomorrow, it won't be easy for him to keep the lead, since there is an uphill finish, but I'm sure we can keep this spirit up until the end of competition."
The BMC team had a mixed day, with Ballan moving up to third overall and Michael Schär crashing out of the race. Ballan made the final cut, but lost the sprint to the Lampre duo. He w still happy. "It was a perfect day for me," Ballan said. "I had the entire team working well for me because the three riders [Dominique Rollin, Johnny Hoogerland and Cameron Meyer] who were away in the breakaway earlier were dangerous."
Ballan's teammate Schär crashed in the feed zone between the day's second and third climbs, when his rear tire punctured as he was grabbing a mussette bag. The Swiss struck a pole and injured his left shoulder and elbow. "He has ligament damage to his left clavicle," BMC Racing Team Dr. Dario Spinelli said. "But there appears to be no broken bones."
Milram was happy to place two riders in the top ten after the fourth stage. Roy Sentjens is now tenth and Paul Voß seventh in the overall. "We were riding very strong today and were very alert. I did expect a bit more in the finale", said Vittorio Algeri, Milram's directeur sportif. "But when you look at the overall classification after today's stage, we can be very pleased with today's result. Tomorrow's stage is harder than today's, so we will try to perform well again."
The race started with the break of Cameron Meyer (Garmin-Transitions), Johnny Hoogerland (Vacansoleil) and Dominique Rollin (Cervélo TestTeam) after 50 kilometers. Their maximum gap was 5'20. The peloton was calmly following, until Lampre picked up the pace.
Rollin had fallen back at the second KOM, but Meyer and Hoogerland continued. They were caught at the third KOM, with an immediate counter attack by Jaroslaw Marycz (Saxo Bank) and Hoogerland's Vacansoleil teammate Marco Marcato. Marcato was able to get a gap and raised his arms as he crossed the line on the second of three closing 6.8km laps. Once he realized his mistake it was too late and he was caught by the Lampre-led bunch.
Hometown rider Marcin Sapa and Angelo Furlan drove the pace in the end. Only forty riders made the cut to sprint for the win. Lampre had a perfect tactic, with Lorenzetto and Bole entering the finishing straight in the top two position.