The defending champion at Tour de Pologne, Daniel Martin (Garmin-Cervélo), took stage win and the yellow jersey at yesterday's stage 6 of the Polish race.

The Irish rider attacked several times of the stage to Bukowina Tatrzańska, and in the end, leader Peter Sagan (Liquigas-Cannondale) was too tired to follow him. Martin finished the stage one second clear of Vacansoleil's Wout Poels, and Marco Marcato (Vacansoleil) finished third, four second back.

“I really gave it my all today,” Martin said. “I attacked in order to win the stage; the leader’s yellow jersey comes as quite a surprise. It will be hard to hang on to it tomorrow but let’s see what happens. Sagan is faster than me, but on our team we have Haussler, who can bust a good sprint, so we’ll see.

“Back to today, I’d say we were very lucky with the weather. It’s a nice victory, earned in a high level race with excellent riders in the line up.”

In the last 600 meters, Peter Sagan faded and came home sixteenth, 13 seconds behind. With the time bonus, it meant that Martin took the leader's jersey three seconds clear of the Slovakian champion. Marcato is third on the same time.

Today, the last stage will be raced, and Daniel Martin will have to make sure that neither Sagan nor Marcato picks three bonus seconds. It is a flatter stage though, so it may not be too difficult. However, Peter Sagan promised to do his best to take back the lead.

“It was a hard stage,” Sagan said. ”I did my best, but with just a few metres to go to the finish line I got cramps and I could no longer pedal with any force. Nothing is decided in the final classification yet, though. I’m only three seconds behind Martin. I’m going to go for the intermediate sprints and the final sprint on the arrival to try to reap a few seconds’ advantage.”