World champion Michal Kwiatkowski has been soaking up the lion's share of home support so far at the Tour de Pologne, waving to his fans from on top of the Etixx-QuickStep bus, fighting his way through scrums at the podium, and being whisked off to interviews left right and centre.
However, stage 4 of the 72nd edition of the race proved that there was more to celebrate than the rainbow bands. A Polish rider, Maciej Bodnar, was victorious on the day and another Polish rider, Kamil Zielinski, pulled on the yellow jersey as race leader. He also pulled on the fuchsia jersey for the mountains classification, while teammate and namesake Kamil Gradek took the blue of most combative rider. It was the day that the Poles took over their home race.
"I'm ecstatic. It's the most beautiful day in my career. I've always dreamed of wearing the yellow jersey for the Tour de Pologne and today this dream came true," Zielinski told reporters after the stage.
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"It's a very big deal. In Poland this is huge, everyone is happy here that the representation of Poland has the yellow jersey, it's very good for us."
Zielinski, who normally competes at Continental level with Polish team Domin Sport, is riding here as part of a Polish national squad. He managed to make it into a winning break with Bodnar and Latvian Gatis Smukulis. The 27-year-old, clearly delighted with his jersey, had no regrets about not being able to match Bodnar in the sprint and was just as happy to see a compatriot take the spoils.
"I'm very happy with my second place. Maciej Bodnar won but in a way it's a double success because he's a Polish man. I'm very happy, Maciej is stronger than me and I knew it wasn't possible to win against him.
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