Rafal Majka

Nationality: Polish
Date of birth: September 12, 1989
Height: 173cm
Weight: 62kg
Team: Bora-Hansgrohe
Twitter: @majkaformal

One of a fine crop of young Polish riders along with the likes of Michal Kwiatkowski, Rafal Majka has already made his name as a competitive climber and GC contender in some of the world’s toughest races.

Majka boasts a palmarès that most riders would be satisfied with at the end of their careers. Two stage wins and the mountains classification at the 2014 Tour de France marked a stand-out year for him, but he soon added to that with another impressive breakaway stage win in the 2015 edition before going on to take third place overall at the Vuelta a España.

While that Grand Tour podium finish was a breakthrough for the then Tinkoff rider in the three-week races, he’s also shown prowess in the shorter stage races, with an overall win at his home race the Tour of Poland, as well as in one-day races, with podium finishes at Milan-Torino and the Il Lombardia.

Though the Tinkoff team stopped racing, two key members of that squad remained together in Rafal Majka and Peter Sagan but under a new name in Bora-Hansgrohe with Majka coming to the fore in carrying the team’s GC hopes. Especially after former teammate Alberto Contador moved on to Trek-Segafredo.

In the 2016 tour Majka finished 5th overall, the best result he has had at the Tour so far. He also won his National Champs jersey for the first time.

Since then he has won a smattering of one week races and several podiums on stages at la Vuelta. Whilst he clearly is one of the best climbers in the world, there has always been something missing that has prevented him from rising to the top spot at a grand tour.

Major results: Tour de France – 3x stage wins | Tour de France 2014 mountains classification | Tour of Poland 2014 overall | Vuelta a España 2015 3rd overall