Team Visma | Lease a Bike’s Olav Kooij has sprinted to the win on the opening stage of the 2025 Tour de Pologne, proving strongest in a messy stage 1 finale in Legnica this Monday afternoon.
Four riders went clear to form the breakaway early on. When Nadav Raisberg dropped back however, just Lars Boven (Alpecin – Deceuninck), Donavan Grondin (Arkéa – B&B Hotels) and Patryk Stosz of the Polish national team remained out ahead of the bunch.
The peloton were keeping things incredibly tight though, not really allowing anything more than a minute and a half when it came to an advantage for the breakaway. By the time the stage entered its final 50km, just Grondin and Boven remained in the lead, only by around 40 seconds though, with Soudal – Quick-Step keeping close control of the peloton.
With around 38km to go, Grondin and Boven’s narrow advantage was then finally closed by the peloton, ending the breakaway’s hopes for the day.
A sole King of the Mountains gave something to fight for at just over 15km to go, but with the peloton still in control of the race, Lidl-Trek’s experienced Dutchman Bauke Mollema popped out the front of the bunch to take the maximum points on offer and get himself into the lead of the KoM classification for the minimum of effort.
With numerous top sprinters in the peloton, the fight for position at the front between sprint teams was a fierce one at the front. Notably, Team Visma | Lease a Bike had seemingly built two separate sprint trains, one for Olav Kooij and one for Matthew Brennan.
Inside the final two kilometres however, the peloton was rocked by a crash near the front, disrupting a few trains. Once the sprints opened in the last few hundred metres though, it was Tim Torn Teutenberg who opened up the sprint, but as the German faded, Olav Kooij powered to the win.