A dozen climbs on stage 6 of the Tour de Pologne fractured the peloton, but it was the final descent that proved critical to stage winner Georg Preidler (Groupama-FDJ). The 28-year-old fought his way through an attack-filled finale and found himself in a small group with team leader Thibaut Pinot, race leader Michal Kwiatkowski (Team Sky) and six others - all looking at each other and coasting down the hill with less than a kilometre to go. With nothing to lose, Preidler mashed on the pedals, dove right and flew away down the descent - tucked low on his top tube - then hurtled through the technical last few hundred metres to hold off Bora-Hansgrohe`s Emmanuel Buchmann to take the victory.ADVERTISEMENT `It`s very important,` Preidler said of his first WorldTour win. `I`m really happy. I`ve been looking for a long time for a victory like this. It`s almost my seventh year as a professional. So finally I could win in the WorldTour. I`ve been close but never on the top step.` The 129km stage from Zakopane to the Bukowina resort was littered with climbs. An early breakaway focussed on the mountains classification stayed away until the penultimate climb when BMC`s Rohan Dennis attacked. Next, Sunweb`s Sam Oomen and Dries Devenyns (Quick-Step Floors) got away, and when they came back, LottoNl-Jumbo`s George Bennett took a turn. But Sky successfully chased back each threatening move for Kwiatkowski. `It was a hard and fast day and really stressful,` Preidler said. `Sky was in control of everything and no team had actually a chance. For me, I just saw a chance to try something on the last 500m because the final was quite technical. I just jumped away at the right moment.` - Le Gruppetto (@LeGruppetto) August 9, 2018
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