Bialystok, May 30th 2021 – Marijn van den Berg secured the second stage and took the lead in the General Classification at the end of today’s 124,6 km race. The first of more than four competitions included in the Nations Cup is over with the Netherlands showing impressive teamwork and extraordinary race management.
135 riders attended the 3rd edition of the Polish U23 Grand Prix, lined up in Bialystock at 9.30 and lit up the race with immediate attacks that resulted in a 4 rider brakeaway – Kamil Szymacha (Poland), Lev Gonov (Russia), Maximillian Schmidbauer (Austria), Kasper Viberg Søgaard (Denmark) with a 3’05” gap from the peloton at the -75km mark.
A group consisting of Van den Berg, Heiduk, Bittner chased the breakaway and significantly reduced the gap with 40km to go despite the wind making the riders form echelons and split up the groups.
Once again Holland dominated the race protecting their leader in an exciting finale where the main rivals gave it their absolute all to change the outcome of the race.
Marijn van den Berg: ‘If you look at the results, you might think it was a copy/paste stage. But only the last few kilometers were the same. Before, we would have had to work hard and anticipate the wind. At some point we saw that the wind was good to make echelons. We went full throttle and luckily had 4 guys in the breakaway. It proved to be crucial during the last kilometers, when my teammates gave me a perfect lead out once again. I am very thankful and very happy to win the race. Tomorrow I am flying to Italy to start the baby Giro on Wednesday. Hopefully I can keep the good results coming.’
Czeslaw Lang: ‘It is always so exciting to see young riders applying cycling strategies this way. We have witnessed two days of real cycling, while we see these talents grow and I am sure we will be able to support them for a long time among the professionals. The wind tested them and Holland has shown that they know how to juggle everything perfectly in these conditions. I am so proud to give U23 the opportunity to compete in exciting races like this one.’
Stage result
1 VAN DEN BERG Marijn – Netherlands – 124.6 km in 2:33:49
2 HEIDUK Kim – Germany
3 VAN DIJKE Mick – Netherlands
4 GUDMESTAD Tord – Norway
5 SYRITSA Gleb – Russia
General Classification
1 VAN DEN BERG Marijn – Netherlands – 5:32:40
2 HEIDUK Kim – Germany – 0:08
3 BITTNER Pavel – Czech Republic – 0:16
4 VAN DIJKE Mick – Netherlands – 0:16
5 GUDMESTAD Tord – Norway – 0:20
