Pole position

The victory of Polish road race champion, Michael Kwiatkowski, at the Strade Bianche was so impressive that he is unlikely to be afforded such license again. Hindsight is a wonderful thing, but few of his rivals can claim to be truly surprised by Kwiatkowski’s performance in Tuscany, arriving so soon after his overall victory in Portugal at the Volta ao Algarve.

The full significance of his triumph in Tuscany, however, is greater even than might be gained from the obvious achievement of consecutive victories in stage and one-day races. His overall triumph in the Algarve came courtesy of an individual time trial victory on stage one (at the expense of Tony Martin, Alberto Contador and Alex Dowsett). Two days later, he saw off Contador and world road race champion, Rui Costa (Lampre-Merida), to win the mountainous second stage. Now he has a victory in a prestigious one-day race to add to his palmares. What next for the 23-year-old?

Despite delivering the best performance of his much-fancied Omega Pharma-Quickstep squad at their ‘home’ race last season, Kwiatkowski is unlikely to lead the team at Flanders, or at Roubaix, where a resurgent Tom Boonen is likely to enjoy the status of protected rider. Nor is he likely to be the team’s man for Milan-San Remo, with 2009 winner, Mark Cavendish, again fancyting the job.

He will travel next week with Cavendish to Tirreno-Adriatico very much as the man in form, however, and should he add the Race of the Two Seas to his palmares then the peloton’s other rising stars (see the next page) will have much to do to match his progress. Once business is concluded in Italy, he is likely to carry OPQS hopes in Ardennes week.

Little seems to be beyond Kwiatkowski in his current form. With the likes of Alessandro Petacchi giving up a wheel for him, and Cavendish serving as pace man to lead him back to the bunch, he clearly enjoyed the confidence of his more accomplished team-mates in Tuscany. That he repaid their faith speaks volumes. Cycling may have a new star.