Victories in Milan-Sanremo and Strade Bianche, along with podium spots in Amstel Gold Race and Liege-Bastogne-Liege, mark arguably the most consistent spring of Michal Kwiatkowski's career.
Having successfully led Team Sky’s classics outfit, the former world champion is now eyeing the Tour de France. After a short period of rest at the beginning of May, he has already resumed preparations with a two-week altitude camp, and will line up alongside Chris Froome at the Criterium du Dauphine.
During the French race Kwiatkowski will be putting the finishing touches to his shape ahead of the Grande Boucle, where he hopes to support the Briton’s bid to win a fourth maillot jaune.
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This year the Polish rider has bounced back after a difficult 2016 season in which success – victory in E3 Harelbeke, as well as great team performances in the Olympic Games and Vuelta a Espana – was interspersed with illnesses and a general lack of consistency after too strong a start to the season.
In 2017 he was motivated to live up to the expectations. A gradual build-up towards spring one-day races paid dividends as the 26-year-old took a confidence-boosting victory at Strade Bianche. Two weeks later, after clocking some more kilometres at Tirreno-Adriatico, he was up against Peter Sagan and Julian Alaphilippe in the Milan-San Remo finale, edging the world champion on the line and taking his first Monument win.
“It's hard to say whether it was my best spring… definitely the most consistent,” he told Cyclingnews two days after Liege-Bastogne-Liege. “This makes me quite happy. I’d be equally proud if I didn’t win but was still among the best and fought for victories. I wanted to start the season slower, control my shape and motivation and peak during Ardennes week. It worked out.”
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