With the 2015 season about to begin, we wanted to recap the last few of our top moments of the 2014 season. The team earned 68 overall victories (64 road, 1 cyclocross, 3 track), and it was difficult to narrow down a small selection. However, it was clear which moments stood out for special mention. Our final moment is perhaps the biggest of the 2014 season: Polish rider Michal Kwiatkowski winning the UCI World Road Championship.
24-year-old Michal Kwiatkowski, isolated for Poland after his teammates gave everything on the front to chase down breakaways earlier in the race, gained a golden reward for an enormous risk. Kwiatkowski attacked with 6.9km to go, in anticipation of a final climb (1.1km, 6.6% average gradient) and then a descent to a flat finale of the 254.8km UCI World Road Championship on Sunday.
The move was perfectly timed. Kwiatkowski went on to win gold despite the best effort of the riders behind him. A small group of favorites tried to chase him down in the final kilometers. Several national teams had multiple riders still present in the peloton, but the gap was too much to hope the race ended in a bunch sprint, which forced a select group to chase down Kwiatkowski. He was able to hold the elite group behind him off in the final meters to become world road champion for the first time in his career.
"Our team did incredible work," Kwiatkowski said of his Polish teammates the day of his victory. "We just tried to control the bunch the whole day. I was in the front and I didn't plan to attack on the second-to-last descent. But I saw the opportunity to be in the group in front, which had five riders at that point before the last climb. I caught them and could relax a bit, and control my effort on the last climb. Even a small advantage on the last climb can be difficult to chase down a rider like me from there. I saw it was possible from the Under-23 race before, that it's possible to make it. I'm not the best sprinter compared to guys like Simon Gerrans and Alejandro Valverde, but in the end it worked and it is an incredible feeling. I think for Polish cycling this is really important to have a beautiful victory like this. This season has been amazing for Poland with Rafal Majka and his performance at the Tour de France for example. Now I have this rainbow jersey, and it's an amazing feeling. I told the guys at a meeting yesterday that I felt great and I said it again at the start of the race. I really needed support from them and they did it all the time. I felt relaxed all day. With these weather conditions it was important to stay in front. This made it much easier for me to have such great help from my teammates. It kept me comfortable and gave me big energy at the end. I have to thank them, and I have to also dedicate this to my girlfriend Agata and the Polish nation as they give me such big morale, and I am so proud to give this back to them."
Kwiatkowski became the first Polish rider in UCI history to win road gold, and only the third rider in team history to earn the rainbow jersey on the road after Tom Boonen in 2005, and Paolo Bettini in 2006 and 2007.
"I am only 24-years-old, but in the second half of the season I just felt great and it showed in the final kilometers," Kwiatkowski said. "At 1.5 kilometers to go it felt like so much left to go, but what can I say. I saw guys coming, I had a little bit of an advantage, and I knew it was all or nothing. I went full gas and I made it after a really risky attack. In the end, it worked."
Kwiatkowski begins his 2015 season in the Rainbow jersey at Tour de San Luis, which starts on the 19th of January. While the young rider is still learning, he knows the honor that being a World Champion brings every time he is at the start line of a race.
"I want to thank Etixx – Quick-Step as they have always had confidence in me and because of this growth as a rider with them, I believed I could win with this kind of attack on the last lap," Kwiatkowski said. "I am so proud to be the third Etixx - Quick-Step rider to wear the rainbow stripes on the road. It shows the winning tradition of this team. It gave me big motivation to train hard during the winter, and I have great pride in wearing this Rainbow jersey. I am still developing as a rider, and thanks to the great support I get with Etixx – Quick-Step I believe I can represent this jersey well in 2015, and work toward more big goals in the future."