Tour of Poland 2026 – Stage 2 [LAST 10 KM]

August 4, 2026

83rd Tour de Pologne 2026 (2.UWT) ME – Stage 2 – Międzyzdroje – Szczecin : 150,1 km

Tour of Poland is a UCI WorldTour stage race run across varied terrain that can include flat sprint stages, rolling roads, and selective mountain finishes. The route often moves through open countryside and urban circuits, with exposed stretches where wind can split the field and tighter finales that demand careful positioning. Riders face a mix of physical and tactical challenges, from long transfers of effort on fast road sections to sharper climbs that force repeated accelerations and test recovery. The race dynamics shift by stage, with sprinters’ teams controlling flatter days, breakaway riders seeking time on rolling terrain, and general classification contenders waiting for the harder uphill finishes or time trials. Typical stages may feature 3–5 categorized climbs, technical corners, and decisive closing kilometers that reward precision as much as power. Finishes can come down to bunch sprints, reduced groups, or late attacks, depending on how selective each day becomes.

A long, utterly devastating surge of power saw Jonathan Milan (Lidl-Trek) easily fend off the opposition and come through a dangerous late corner perfectly placed for a second straight bunch sprint victory in the Tour de Pologne.

Paul Magnier (Soudal-QuickStep) tried hard to anticipate the race leader’s last blast for the finish, but after chasing down XDS-Astana’s Matteo Malucelli, the Frenchman once again proved powerless to stop the Italian national champion, who was already well ahead.

Given his superiority in the sprint, once a day-long four-rider breakaway had been reeled in, Milan’s biggest obstacle was likely getting through a full U-turn corner at 400 metres to go unscathed, upright and well-positioned for the final kick – which he successfully did.

Once Milan opened up his sprint from third place behind Ivan García Cortina (Movistar), Magnier was seemingly in no position to answer, with the Italian doubling up on his stage 1 victory on the second-placed Frenchman, once again by several bike lengths.

“Once again I have to say thanks to my teammates, we managed really well,” Milan said later in an audio file provided by his team.

“I was a bit nervous and worried about getting boxed in in the last three kilometres when there were big roads. It was easy to get lost in this kind of washing machine effect. But we always stayed together, the team always pulled for me.”

“Those last 450 metres – I was surprised by the gap I got on the guys from Astana. But I had a good start to my sprint and even if it was a super-long one, it went really well.”

A one-sided competition
On a very flat stage with no classified climbs and 91 metres above sea level being the high point of the entire day, the sprinters were always going to be itching for a second straight chance at victory. But neither a spell of brief midday rainfall nor that knowledge of the likely outcome deterred four breakaway riders from making a bid for freedom all the same.

Jonas Rutsch (Lotto-Intermarché), Anton Schiffer (Visma-Lease a Bike) and Polish National Team duo Radoslaw Frątczak and Patryk Stosz were the four who opted to go from distance almost from the gun. However, in a rerun of stage 1’s early move, as soon as the break reached around 90 seconds’ advantage, Lidl-Trek began tapping out a steady pace behind, evidently to ensure the sprinters in general and Milan in particular wouldn’t miss out on such a great opportunity.

Up in the break, the two Poles were the keenest to claim the intermediate sprints that followed, seemingly taking turns to cross the line in first place. Meanwhile the peloton trundled along behind on a series of dense woodland and country roads, waiting for the right moment to light up the pace.

That process began around 65 kilometres to go, as Lidl-Trek and Soudal-QuickStep increased speed steadily and quickly reduced the four riders’ gap from 90 to 40 seconds. That didn’t stop KoM leader Dries De Bondt (Jayco-AlUla), though, from deciding it was time to bridge across and breathe some more life into the four-rider move.

Not helped by the relentlessly flat terrain along broad A-roads, the Belgian finally made it across after a 15-kilometre pursuit, just as Stosz fell out of the running in the break due to a mechanical. Stosz’s teammate Frątczak was still in the thick of it, though, picking up the final intermediate sprint at Goleniów in another short, sharp skirmish.

De Bondt certainly played a critical role in keeping the break alive, taking very long turns on the front on an interminable series of flat highways, as EF, third on Monday with Noah Hobbs behind Milan and Magnier, also showed an interest in chasing behind. Eventually, the combined effort by the sprinters’ teams had its near-inevitable effect and finally squeezed all the life out of the break at just under 15 kilometres to go, when observed by vast crowds of holidaymakers, the last of the four ahead were caught.

The series of well-surfaced highways leading to the North Sea coast was ideal for the sprinters’ teams to keep things under control in the finale, particularly as NSN and Tudor helped ensure there were no late challengers. The sunshine beat down as the peloton tore across one vast bridge into Szczecin at speeds touching 60 km/h, even if the constantly switching of road-width from four to two lanes and back up again provided perfect conditions for a full-scale washing-machine effect in the bunch.

Netcompany-Ineos made a determined bid for Sam Welsford on the right of the road with three kilometres to go, trying to anticipate the more technical finale. Yet their effort crumpled as Decathlon CGA CMN began bossing the front and the pack swung over another long road bridge and onto a fast but brief section of downhill.

Powering through for Astana on the left-hand side in the final kilometre, Malucelli was perfectly positioned to make it first into the critical U-turn and out the other side. But Milan, too, had made it through the U-turn well-placed and ready to strike, and after a second devastating victory that came just seconds later for the Lidl-Trek star, the odds of Milan taking a third on stage 3’s ultra-flat stage are almost equally high.

Results :