Matej Mohoric (Bahrain Victorious) has said that he will donate the prize money from his narrow overall victory in the Tour de Pologne on Friday to charities helping the victims of today’s flash floods in Slovenia.
Following torrential rain overnight, major floods devastated parts of Slovenia early today, leaving several towns underwater, buildings destroyed, and many roads rendered impassable. With telecommunications badly damaged and rains set to continue, it is not yet clear how many lives have been lost.
Tied on time with João Almeida (UAE Team Emirates) before Friday’s final flat stage into Krakow, Mohoric finally won the Tour de Pologne by one second after beating his Portuguese rival in an intermediate sprint.
But while willing to discuss the race in his press conference, Mohoric made it clear his thoughts were very much elsewhere following the news of the disastrous floods currently affecting his country.
As Mohoric pointed out, the battle could not have been any closer, but in the intermediate sprint duel, he just managed to outpace Almeida. In every encounter with the Portuguese racer, in fact – at Karpacz for the victory on stage 2, then in the uphill sprint in Bielsko-Biala where he outsprinted Almeida for second and again on stage 7’s intermediate – Mohoric has beaten Almeida by the bare minimum.
But on each occasion, having the upper hand, albeit by a painfully narrow margin, has taken the Slovenian a step closer to overall victory.
“If I had been a single bike length slower at that sprint, then I would have lost the race,” Mohoric concluded, “so I can only thank my teammates for this. They’ve been working hard all week, and tonight we will celebrate.”
“After what happened this morning, my heart was with all the people of Slovenia who lost their homes and lives in those floods. It was horrible and actually quite hard to focus on the race,” Mohoric told reporters.
“As soon as I get back to Slovenia, I will donate all the prize money from the race to charity and try to help as much as I can financially.”
“Obviously, I can’t fight floods or help the fire service directly because I don’t know how to. But my heart is with all the people who are suffering at the moment.”
Asked by reporters about the final stage, the last standout in the GC duel between Almeida and Mohoric took place in an intermediate sprint at kilometre 67.5, where a time bonus of three, two and one second was awarded.
Finishing ahead of Mohoric…
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