Rafał Majka

Majka's medal was the first for Poland at the Rio Olympics, and the first medal won by a Polish male cyclist in an individual event since Czesław Lang's silver in the same event in 1980.

Rafał Majka ( Polish pronunciation: ; born 12 September 1989) is a Polish professional road bicycle racer, who rides for UCI WorldTeam.

Having finished second to Vincenzo Nibali on stage 13, Majka earned his first professional victory on stage 14 after going solo on the final climb to Risoul, become the first Polish Tour de France stage winner since Zenon Jaskuła in 1993.

Four days later he claimed another victory on stage 17, soloing to the mountaintop finish atop Pla d'Adet.

These successes, as well as some other strong performances in mountain stages, earned Majka the polka dot jersey as winner of the mountains classification, becoming the first Polish rider to win a jersey at the Tour de France.

A couple of weeks after the Tour de France, he won stages five and six of the Tour de Pologne – the first Polish stage victories at the race in a decade – to take the race lead ahead of the final 25 km individual time trial around Kraków.

Majka lost some of his eighteen-second lead on the final stage, but held on to win by eight seconds over Ion Izagirre, to become the first Polish rider to win the Tour de Pologne at UCI World Tour level, and the first home victory since Cezary Zamana in 2003.

He contested one further race during the season, finishing fourth overall at the USA Pro Cycling Challenge, with a second-place finish in a two-up sprint to Tejay van Garderen at the Monarch Mountain ski resort being his best stage result.

Majka turned professional in February 2011, signing a contract with the team.

He rode at the Vuelta a España, but withdrew in the final week.

At the Tour de l'Ain in August 2012, Majka finished second on the penultimate stage, losing out to Andrew Talansky in Septmoncel, having been part of a three-rider breakaway.

In October, Majka won the white jersey for the best young rider at the Tour of Beijing, finishing in seventh overall, and finished in third place at the Japan Cup.

He is known as a strong climber, and rose to prominence at the 2013 Giro d'Italia, where he finished 7th overall, and 6th one year later; he has taken fifteen victories during his professional career.

In 2013, he competed in the Giro d'Italia for the first time, where he had a long battle with Carlos Betancur over the lead in the young rider classification, which eventually fell to Betancur in the penultimate stage.

In the general classification, he ended up seventh, eight minutes behind winner Vincenzo Nibali.

He led his home race, the Tour de Pologne for three days, before losing a podium on the final 37 km individual time trial; he won the points classification alongside his fourth-place overall finish.

He finished his season with podium finishes at Milano–Torino (second to Diego Ulissi), and the Giro di Lombardia (third).

Prior to the Giro d'Italia, Majka won the white jersey at the Critérium International, finishing in fourth place overall.

He was co-leader of at the Giro d'Italia along with Nicolas Roche, and held third place overall for the middle third of the race.

He lost two positions on the mountain stage to Val Martello before losing a further position on the 26.8 km individual time trial which finished atop the Monte Grappa, ultimately falling to a sixth-place overall finish, which was one place better off than his 2013 result.

He ultimately finished 7 minutes and 4 seconds down on the race winner, Nairo Quintana.

Majka was a last-minute inclusion in 's Tour de France squad, after Roman Kreuziger was temporarily suspended from racing due to irregular biological passport values.

Other major achievements are three mountainous stage wins in the Tour de France, two victories in the mountains classification at the race (2014 and 2016), and two stages and the overall victory at the 2014 Tour de Pologne.

Through multiple breakaways, he was able to repeat his 2014 accomplishment and win the mountains classification, albeit falling short of a stage win, with four second- and third-place stage finishes.

At the Rio Olympics, Majka finished third in the individual road race, winning the bronze medal.

He was part of a late breakaway group also containing Nibali and Sergio Henao.

On the final descent, both Nibali and Henao crashed, leaving Majka alone in front, unable to preserve his advantage over the chase group to the finish.

He was caught by eventual winner Greg Van Avermaet and Jakob Fuglsang within 2 km of the finish line and did not participate in the final sprint, settling for third.

He achieved his only Grand Tour podium finish at the 2015 Vuelta a España, where he finished third.

In contrast to the previous two years, Majka did not ride the Giro d'Italia in 2015 where Alberto Contador made the first step in trying to do a Giro–Tour double, but Majka did start in the Tour de France, having achieved top ten finishes at the Tour of Oman (fourth), the Tour de Romandie (seventh), and the Tour de Suisse (tenth), in preparation for the race.

Majka won stage 11 of the Tour de France to Cauterets from a breakaway, to take his third Tour stage victory.

Majka then prepared to race his season target, the Vuelta a España, attempting to gain a top 5 or podium finish in the general classification.

He performed well throughout the entire race, being able to stay near to the top of the general classification behind the likes of Tom Dumoulin, Nairo Quintana and Fabio Aru.

On the penultimate stage, stage 20, Majka managed to advance himself from fourth overall up to third, ultimately finishing on the podium of a Grand Tour for the first time.

Before the end of the season, Majka recorded his second runner-up finish in three years at Milano–Torino, behind Diego Rosa.

In the early part of the season, Majka recorded top-ten overall finishes at the Tour de San Luis (seventh), and the Vuelta a Andalucía (fifth).

At the Giro d'Italia, Majka raced as the leader of the team and finished fifth overall, four minutes behind winner Vincenzo Nibali, his best result to that point.

Following the Giro d'Italia, Majka won the Polish National Road Race Championships for the first time in his career, breaking away at the front over the last climb and holding his advantage to the finish line.

During the Tour de France, team leader Alberto Contador dropped out, leaving Majka as one of his team's chances for success.

At the 2016 Summer Olympics, he won a bronze medal for Poland in the road race.