Lotto Soudal’s Bert De Clerq has won the 72nd Tour Of Poland fifth stage and takes over the race with a four second lead over Diego Ullisi.
Kamil Zielinski was the leader going into this fifth 223km stage from Nowy Sącz to Zakopane.
After two attempts at a break failed, Boris Vallee, Grega Bole, Edward Beltran, Sebastien Turgot, Vergard Breen and Kris Broeckmans were able to form a break which got 1.35 ahead and stood at 5.50 after forty kilometres.
That advantage went out to 6.20 before Bole took the first climb and Broeckmans dropped off the lead group with a hundred kilometres to go.
Onto the two finishing laps of fifty kilometres and Turgot of AG2R was 1.20 down after suffering a mechanical.
The four now clear had a lead of four minutes with Bole taking more points on the third climb.
Breen and Vallee were dropped leaving Bole and Edward Beltran of Tinkoff Saxo with a 1.07 lead over the peloton.
Bole took the fourth climbe before Berltan dropped him and went off in search of a lone victory.
Onto the last circuit and Team Sky had brought him back on a stage which was without Movistar’s Alex Dowsett and Lobato who had both gone home suffering with a fever.
Serge Henao of Team Sky put in an attack but he was caught before the final climb in the Tetra mountains which started with two Astana riders on the front and fourteen riders in a front group on a climb which had altitudes of 1123 metres.
Fabian Aru and David Formilo tried to attack just before the top of the climb but it was Henao who took the points over the top of the climb.
Bart De Clerq of Lotto Soudal put in an attack and was able to get clear of a group of ten riders. No one was able to catch him and De Clerq won in 5.49.51 ahead of Ulissu and Rechenbach.
De Clerq now leads the race going into stage six.