“It was a perfect day, an amazing start for us and I’m really happy,” Planet said. “This is a World Tour race, and this is the King of the Mountains jersey. I will give my all to defend it and will fight until I don’t have legs left!”
Planet Wins King of the Mountains Jersey in Tour de Pologne Opener
Team Novo Nordisk's Charles Planet won the King of the Mountains jersey on the opening stage of the seven-day World Tour race.
Kraków, Poland — Team Novo Nordisk celebrated its return to the Tour de Pologne with a brilliant performance by Charles Planet (FRA) who went in the day’s breakaway and won the King of the Mountains jersey on the opening stage of the seven-day World Tour race.
“It was a perfect day, an amazing start for us and I’m really happy,” Planet said. “This is a World Tour race, and this is the King of the Mountains jersey. I will give my all to defend it and will fight until I don’t have legs left!”
The short and relatively flat opening stage started and finished in Kraków, and Team Novo Nordisk was committed to animate the race and show the #ChangingDiabetes jersey at the front.
Frenchman Charles Planet attacked from the gun and two riders followed from the Polish National Team, The trio received the green light from the peloton and successfully opened a three-minute gap. With the King of the Mountains and Sprint jerseys up for grabs, Planet set his sights on guaranteeing a podium at the end of the day, and the 25-year-old Frenchman did not disappoint.
“When it’s a sprint finish, I don’t enjoy staying in the peloton, so I try my hardest to go in the breakaway. I took a lot of risks in the first few corners and saw a gap along with two Polish riders,” Planet said. “They had numbers, so I was concerned they would play that card in the fight for the jersey. Soon, I saw I was the strongest and felt confident.”
Planet took the KOM at the top of the Cat-4 Lanckorona climb and soon doubled his tally with the Witanowice KOM with 56 km to go. With the King of Mountains jersey secured, Planet stamped his authority on the last climb in Kaszów making it a clean sweep before getting caught by the peloton inside the final 15 km.
Team Novo Nordisk’s Italian fast man Andrea Peron was the squad’s best-positioned sprinter as the peloton took on the first of four finishing laps in downtown Kraków.
A crash in a corner with 3.5 km to go split the group and Peron was left with ground to make up. Peron dug deep but settled for 27th position while Pascal Ackermann (BORA - hansgrohe) outsprinted the competition to take the stage win. Planet finished in the peloton and sits in fourth position overall.
On Sunday, the world’s first all-diabetes professional cycling team will continue to show what’s possible with diabetes on Stage 2 at the Tour de Pologne, another flat stage that will start in Tarnowskie Góry and finish in Katowice over 152.7 km.
Team Novo Nordisk is a global all-diabetes sports team of cyclists spearheaded by the world’s first all-diabetes UCI Professional Continental cycling team. In 2012, Phil Southerland, co-founder and CEO of the team, and global healthcare company Novo Nordisk, came together to create Team Novo Nordisk, based on a shared vision to inspire, educate and empower people around the world affected by diabetes. For more information, go to www.teamnovonordisk.com.
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©Photo: Team Novo Nordisk