Ineos Grenadiers rider Ben Turner earned the biggest victory of his career on Wednesday, sprinting to take stage three of the Tour de Pologne.
The win marked the Brit’s second since he turned pro in 2022, and his first at WorldTour level. Following the wheel of his team-mate Michał Kwiatkowski, Turner was the fastest in an uphill dash to the line in Wałbrzych, Poland, holding off Pello Bilbao (Bahrain Victorious) by a bike length.
The stage was neutralised with 15km to go, following a crash involving the race leader Paul Lapeira (Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale). The incident came on a bending, single-lane road, and saw Lapeira, as well as around five others, fall into a grassy ditch.
Signalling from a follow car, the race director decided to stop the race for around 15 minutes. A three-rider breakaway was then allowed a 40-second head start, and it was agreed that the GC times would be neutralised, with any resulting time gaps not counting towards the standings.
The breakaway was then caught just before the 1km-to-go banner by a chasing group. After Ineos Grenadiers closed the gap, the peloton then came back together around 500m from the line, when Kwiatkoswki brought Turner to the front for the Brit to launch his sprint.
“A BIG win for Big Ben,” Ineos Grenadiers celebrated on social media. “Ben Turner sprints to victory after a superp team effort on stage 3 at the Tour de Pologne.”
After graduating from British Continental team Trinity Racing, Turner joined Ineos Grenadiers in 2022, and has since become a core part of the team’s Classics squad.
He took his first pro victory in February 2023 at the one-day Vuelta Ciclista a la Región de Murcia Costa Cálida, an event in the south of Spain. Since then, the 26-year-old has raced the Tour de France twice and, earlier this year, finished third on a sprint stage of the Giro d’Italia.
Lapeira, despite finishing more than eight minutes down on stage three, continues to lead the Tour de Pologne following the neutralisation. The Frenchman has an eight-second advantage over Turner’s Ineos Grenadiers team-mate Victor Langellotti.
The opening stage was won by Olav Kooij, before Lapeira took a victory and the yellow jersey on stage two. The seven-day race will conclude on Sunday 10 August with a time trial in Wieliczka.
