Three-time U23 Cross-country World Champion Jolanda Neff soloed to her first win on the road in wet conditions at the Women's Tour de Pologne, 1:31 minutes ahead of Flavia Oliveira (BTC City Ljubljana). Neff attacked early in Zakopane circuit race, and despite a crash which forced a bike change, proved to be the strongest rider on the day as she continued to grow her lead across the 100km stage and stake an early claim for overall honours.
"I didn't plan on being all alone that early in the race; after the first downhill I was suddenly solo and I had a gap of 40 seconds, so we were not sure if I should ride or if I should wait, but then I reached a good speed and suddenly the gap was a little bit bigger, so then at a certain point we decided I should just go for it. I did have a crash in the downhill; it was quite slippery, so I went down. I think I lost about 20 seconds but luckily I still had a gap and I worked hard until the finish to increase it a little more, which I think is important for the general classification," said Neff who will compete in the Rio Olympics Games in both the road race and cross-country.
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"Today I have to recover very well because it was a hard stage, a long stage with rain the whole time, so it’s important to recover well, because we have two hard stages to go tomorrow. There are only 19 days to go until the Olympic Road Race in Rio. This is my final preparation, my final race before Rio and yeah, I'm very happy that I can be part of the race here, the Tour of Poland. I've ridden in the rain before, it wasn’t a problem; I am familiar with rain and with cold weather, so that was fine and it was great that we could ride here. I really like the organisation and I love the track, I have never ridden such a hilly race before, so that was really cool."
The peloton face a split-stage on Wednesday with a 4km morning time trial to be followed by 78km stage from Bukovina Resort - Bukowina Tatrzanska
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