Danny van Poppel hasn’t been able to get involved in the bunch sprint of the third stage of the Tour of Poland. Van Poppel was well-positioned, but his sprint didn’t work out well enough.

The course of the stage to Zabrze was a copy of that of the first two stages. The early breakaway was caught in the final after which the sprint teams took control. Team LottoNL-Jumbo was well-positioned. At five hundred metres from the finish line, Tom Leezer started the sprint, but Van Poppel subsequently came short.

“We just have to be honest about that”, sports director Grischa Niermann concluded. “The boys did a good job, but perhaps they started the sprint a little bit too early. Then others passed on all sides. The fact that it didn’t go as planned doesn’t mean that we won’t keep trying. We know that Danny can do it and we still have faith in him. Tomorrow is a difficult finish. We are going for a good result with George in the overall ranking. But Enrico can also do well during a stage with a finish like that.”