Tour of Poland, stage 2 – Marcel Aregger – Too bad it wasn’t enough to get the mountains jersey –

THE STATEMENT

By Marcel Aregger: “Too bad it wasn’t enough to get the mountains jersey.” Aregger, who comes from Zug in Switzerland, was part of a five man lead group that was allowed to take some time ahead of the peloton after about a third of the stage had been raced during this 2nd stage of the Tour of Poland.

THE MOUNTAIN STANDINGS

“On the first climb I was a bit blocked, and was only able to sprint for second. The second categorized climb I was able to win,” Aregger commented after his stage. At the end of the day, four of the riders finished with the same number of points, but since Aregger had finished the stage with a bit of a time gap, he was not allowed to take possession of the jersey for the best climber.

THE ANALYSIS

Eddy Seigneur, who along with Thierry Marichal is acting as the directeur sportif for the IAM Cycling team, took stock of the team’s day. “We were present in the break at the front for most of the day with Marcel. In the final we were a bit unlucky with Matteo Pelucchi. He suffered a flat tire with 25 kilometers to go to the finish. He was able to rejoin the field, but he had to spend too much energy in order to hope to play legitimately for the win. So in the sprint, we went with Heinrich Haussler, who succeeded in taking a top-10 result.”

THE NEXT STAGE

The third stage will cover more than 240 kilometers from Zawiercie to Nowy Sacz. “Yesterday I had a little bit of trouble, but today everything went quite well,” Marcel Aregger explained. He suffered a broken ankle in a training accident in May. “I’ll keep the mountains classification in mind as something to shoot for so long as I have a chance.”

Race Pictures – BettiniPhoto & IAM/Merot