Sutton denied in Katowice

Chris Sutton was unable to make it three top 10 finishes from three at the Tour of Poland after appearing to get blocked by Wouter Weylandt on the pulsating sprint finish in Katowice.

Sutton, wearing the points classification jersey, was led out superbly by Ian Stannard and Mathew Hayman on the long closing straight, but Weylendt positioned himself in front of the Australian and the duo appeared to clip wheels as their rivals pressed on to the finish line.

The stage was won by FDJ's Yauheni Hutarovich, who claimed the narrowest of victories over Sebastián Haedo (Saxo Bank), with Allan Davis (Astana) rounding off the podium in third.

Sutton rolled home just behind in 18th position and dropped to 24th in the overall standings as a result. Davis meanwhile, opened up a three-second advantage over André Greipel (HTC-Columbia) in the battle for the yellow jersey.

Fast start

Wind and rain had threatened to hamper proceedings as they rolled out of Sosnowiec but the action was frenetic from the off and Simon Geschke (Skil-Shimano) and Sébastien Rosseler (RadioShack) eventually broke clear after 15km.

The duo's lead never grew much over 90 seconds though and they were reeled back in on the second of seven 11.7km laps which rounded off the day in neighbouring Katowice.

With that goal achieved the pace in the peloton dropped markedly and Stannard and Hayman tried to take advantage by attacking soon after. The bunch was in no mood to let them stay away either though and immediately gave chase behind.

Numerous further riders would try their hand off the front in the final 40km, with Daniel Lloyd (Cervélo), Danilo Napolitana (Katusha) and Mirco Lorenzetto (Lampre) perhaps putting in the most determined bid, but the bunch was back together as the race reached its conclusion and Hutarovich proved the fastest finisher on the day to claim his fourth victory of the season.

Good ride

When we caught up with sports director Marcus Ljungqvist immediately after the stage he was philosophical about the outcome and praised yet another good team performance.

He said: "CJ is was a little bit frustrated at the end there because he thought Weylandt had swung in front of him and boxed him in, but I've not had the chance to look at it properly yet so I can't really comment.

"The whole team put in another good ride though and we just had a bit of bad luck at the end. Ian and Mathew had taken the initiative earlier in the race when there was a hesitation in the group, and they were right there at the end again for CJ, which was great to see."

Wednesday's stage is a far hillier affair and sees the riders take on three category-1 climbs as they travel the 177.9km between Tychy and Cieszyn. Ljungqvist believes the general classification will be turned on it's head as a result and is hoping climbing specialist Lars-Petter Nordhaug will be fit enough to continue after crashing at full speed on the final lap of the day.

Ljungqvist added: "It's going to be the first proper GC day so we're hoping Lars-Petter will be up there with Peter Kennaugh and Kjell Carlström. There was only him involved in the accident and fortunately it looks as though he's only suffered cuts and bruises. He's a tough guy though so we're confident he's going to be OK."