News: Tour of Poland

The Tour de Poland, the first stage race to be held after the lockdown, unveils the 5 stages of the 77th edition.

News: Tour of Poland

The Tour de Poland, the first stage race to be held after the lockdown, unveils the 5 stages of the 77th edition. Five stages and almost a thousand kilometres for climbers, sprinters and Classics specialists in just over a month.

The 77th edition of the Tour de Poland will start in exactly 35 days and will take place from 5 to 9 August. This edition was made official yesterday on July 1st at 10.15 pm, on TVP Sport, tvpsport.pl and the TVP YouTube channel with Rafal Majka, Bora-hansgrohe and Tomasz Marczynski, Lotto Soudal, live on Skype, while Czeslaw Lang, live from the TVP studio, explained the five days in detail.

The race consists of 891.3 km in which the athletes will have to face 5 testing stages featuring a profile that suits all types of riders perfectly. There will be two stages for pure climbers, one dedicated to the Classics specialists, while the sprinters will certainly be able to hold center stage on two occasions. The first stage race on the professional calendar, after the pandemic that has affected the whole world, will start from the Slaski stadium in Chorzów and will finish, five days later, in Krakow. The race, usually including 7 stages, has changed its route to allow the relocation of all the other events planned on the unusual 2020 cycling calendar, without overlooking the characteristics that a World Tour race requires.

“I am confident because our team has made a huge effort to adjust to the rules dictated by this unexpected worldwide situation. In this case we realize how cycling, and sports in general, is a discipline that teaches us to seize the positive aspects of any occurrence and keep lifting the spirits by delivering unforgettable emotions to enthusiasts, teams and insiders”, explains Czeslaw Lang.

“To guarantee everyone’s safety we had to set some necessary limitations that will certainly influence this edition, but we would like to be the ambassadors of a message of recovery as we are all waiting for the situation to stabilize. The Tour de Poland will be the first stage race to take place after the lockdown of all the competitions. I am sure that this is a significant value for the entire cycling world”, concludes the patron of the Tour de Poland. The 77th edition will also officially celebrate Pope John Paul II’s 100th anniversary”

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Below are the five stages of the 2020 Tour de Poland in detail.

1st stage → Stadion Slaski – Spodek Katowice – 195.8 km
The opening stage covers 195.8 km and starts from the Slaski stadium, built in 1956 and recently renovated. Spodek Katowice will host the finish line in addition to being an old coal city maintaining visible traces of its industrial past. In this city, currently a symbol of culture and beauty with its museums, the philharmonic orchestra and the evocative water canals running through it, the sprinters will compete up to the last watt in a 16.3km circuit to be repeated three times. Silesian Voivodeship will be the partner of the start of this 1st stage

2nd stage → Opole – Zabrze – 151.5 km
The second stage features 151.5 km and will start from Opole, an old fortified city crossed by the River Oder and home to numerous archaeological finds, evidence of the tremendous artistic wealth of the capital of the region. It will certainly be another stage where team trains will dominate the last kilometers, and sprinters, along with Classics’ specialists will fight to cross the slightly uphill finish line first. The stage will end in the town of Zabrze, an important manufacturing center.

3rd stage → Wadowice – Bielsko-Biala, Slaskie – 203.1 km
The third stage will be a very important one for the entire world and certainly for the Polish. The 203.5 km will make up a perfect climbers’ day that starts from Wadowice, Pope John Paul II’s birthplace. Karol Wojtyla has been not only the first and only Polish Pope, but also a crucial figure between the twentieth century and the new Millennium. Wadowice now houses a museum on his history and also boasts countless scenic beauties. The stage finish is located in Bielsko-Biala, Slaskie, a well-known tourist resort surrounded by vast forests and wonderful lakes.

The race will be quite demanding and the final climb will almost likely put a strain on the determination and physical fitness of the riders. Silesian Voivodeship will be the partner of the finish of the stage.

4th stage → BUKOVINA resort – Bukowina Tatrzanska – 152.9 km
Bukovina has been an inevitable destination at the Tour de Poland for a few years now. The penultimate of the 5 stages will feature bewitching natural surroundings where the mountains around the BUKOVINA Resort and Bukowina Tatrzanska will be the perfect backdrop for an undoubtedly entertaining finish. Sciana HARNAS and Sciana BUKOVINA will for sure be one of the biggest difficulty of the day. The almost 153 km stage consists of three laps of 48.5 km each and a gruelling uphill finish that will decide the well-deserved winner.

5th stage → Zakopane – Kraków – 188 km
On Sunday, August 9, the 77th edition of the Tour de Poland will end in Krakow, the main cultural, artistic and university center of Poland, right after covering 188 km long stage featuring a 1st cat climb and two 2nd cat climbs. The peloton will line up in Zakopane, at 750-1000 meters above sea level, an important center for mountaineering and winter sports in the country. Once in Krakow, the riders will face three laps of 4km each, before confirming the winner of the first stage-race of the new 2020 UCI calendar.
Carrefour confirmed its commitment as main sponsor of the 2020 Tour de Poland.