{"id":47467,"date":"2025-08-06T08:27:08","date_gmt":"2025-08-06T08:27:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/47467\/"},"modified":"2025-08-06T08:27:08","modified_gmt":"2025-08-06T08:27:08","slug":"i-wasnt-looking-back-just-the-finish-line-paul-lapeira-outpowers-pre-race-favourites-to-snatch-tour-de-pologne-uphill-finish-stage-win-and-lead","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/47467\/","title":{"rendered":"‘I wasn’t looking back, just the finish line’ – Paul Lapeira outpowers pre-race favourites to snatch Tour de Pologne uphill finish stage win and lead"},"content":{"rendered":"

Less than 24 hours after Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale were lamenting a major lost opportunity at the Tour de Pologne<\/a> when their sprinter Sam Bennett crashed late on stage 1, a well-timed dash for the uphill finish line on stage 2 by Paul Lapeira<\/a> meant the French squad could celebrate an unexpected but well-deserved victory – and the leader’s jersey as well.<\/p>\n

Not considered a pre-stage favourite for the short but punishing climb at Karpacz in south-west Poland, Decathlon nonetheless made their presence known at the foot of the three-kilometre, 6.7% ascent. The French team headed the fast-dissolving front peloton before Ineos Grenadiers’ Michal Kwiatkowski took over and set down a blistering pace for his teammate Magnus Sheffield.<\/p>\n

However, Lapeira<\/a> was close behind the Pole and the US rider. After Sheffield was swamped, and digs by top contenders like Jan Christen (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) and Finn Fisher-Black (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe) fizzled out too early, the former French National Champion made his move and darted away 150 metres from the line.<\/p>\n

A few seconds later, Lapeira claimed the second WorldTour victory of his four-year career, after a stage of Itzulia Basque Country in April 2024. But equally important, the Frenchman also netted his first-ever stage race lead, and his double success meant his difficult first part of the season was definitively behind him.<\/p>\n

Lapeira would not reveal what his bizarre victory salute – making circling gestures with his hands around his ears, then punching one fist in the air – actually meant. But his finely-calculated win on one of Pologne’s best-known ascents, where riders as well-known as Matej Mohoric, Tim Wellens and Thibau Nys have all triumphed, represents a major success for the 25-year-old nonetheless.<\/p>\n

“It was a very hard-fought win, there was a lot of tension in the last 60 kilometres,” Lapeira said afterwards. “The team did a great job to get me up there in the final, and having that good position was crucial to helping me get the win.<\/p>\n

“I felt very good but I made sure I held back as long as possible to be certain of attacking at just the right moment. When I got to the front of the race, I gave it everything in the last 200 metres.”<\/p>\n

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Lapeira said he had no idea what kind of gap he had opened with his final acceleration, which proved enough to net him a 2-second advantage over second place Mathias Vacek (Lidl-Trek) and Victor Langelotti (Ineos Grenadiers). But it was testament to the strength of his effort that despite the shortness of the climb, the peloton had shattered completely behind him.<\/p>\n

“I had no idea where anybody was, I wasn’t looking back,” Lapeira said afterwards. “I just looked at the finish line, I didn’t know anything until I watched a video afterwards.<\/p>\n

“Winning today, in any case, makes me feel great after such a tough start to the year. I knew that I’d trained well in these last few weeks at home, but you always need to make sure that hard work actually counts for something in a race, too.”<\/p>\n

Now nursing an eight-second advantage overall, Lapeira could well gain some more time on Wednesday’s equally demanding, hilly run through south-west Poland, to try and keep the lead. But his main goal in Pologne, he said, has already been achieved.<\/p>\n

“We’ll do everything we can to defend the lead,” he said, “But whatever happens from now on, Pologne can be considered a success both for me and for the team.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Less than 24 hours after Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale were lamenting a major lost opportunity at the Tour…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":47468,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[4985,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-47467","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-cycling","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47467","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47467"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47467\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/47468"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47467"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47467"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47467"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}