After going toe-to-toe on the opening stage of the Tour de Pologne, Marcel Kittel and Caleb Ewan have endured a frustrating two stages in the World Tour race, losing out both times to IAM Cycling's Matteo Pelucchi.
On yesterday's stage 2, Orica-GreenEdge did the lion's share of the work in the closing stages, only for Ewan to crash as he was about to open up his sprint. Kittel's own sprint was hampered by the ensuing pile-up and he ended up being edged out by Pelucchi.
Whereas Kittel shouted at the Italian for supposedly deviating from his line yesterday, on stage 3 he and Ewan will have been cursing Petr Vakoc. The Czech national champion accelerated on a relatively gentle climb approaching the final kilometre and caused a split in the front of the bunch on what was the last certain bunch gallop of the seven-stage tour. Things came back together but by the time did so Kittel and Ewan had both lost their respective teammates.
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"I'm actually very disappointed because the team worked so hard and I couldn't finish it off," Kittel told reporters after a third and possibly final trip to the podium to pull on the yellow jersey.
"I lost my team on the little climb to the last kilometre because someone came in between me and my leadout man. Then I had to go all the way by myself until the last kilometre, then I was simply not strong enough anymore."
It was uncertain how Ewan would fare after coming down heavily on Monday and crossing the line shaken up. But he was clearly up for it as Orica once again led for much of the last 10 kilometres, only to lose each other and leave the 21-year-old neo-pro helplessly watching on.
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