Bureaucrats put the brakes on Tour riders

This year the Tour de Pologne came of age and was included in the UCI Pro Tour, meaning the world's top 20 teams have to take part. With 50 points in the UCI classification at stake, and just 48 points separating the top two overall leaders, the scene was set for a dramatic cycling showdown.

But just before the tour was set to kick off in Gdańsk, it emerged that several riders didn't get their visas on time and were not able to take part. Four Kazakhs, Alexander Vinokourov (who is from the T-Mobile team and was in second place in the UCI classification), Andrey Kashechkin, Dimitriy Muravyev (from the Crédit Agricole team) and Dimitriy Fofonov (Cofidis), did not get their visas from the Polish embassy in France, where the four live, and could not ride in the race.

T-Mobile team manager Olaf Ludwig insisted that the applications were correctly filed, and tried in vain to get the problem ironed out. "The embassy in France didn't issue Vino his visa on time. We're not sure at this moment where exactly this matter ran into problems," he said.

Many in the international sporting community will have watched the Polish handling of the event with interest, particularly given the fact that Poland has launched a joint bid with Ukraine to host the 2012 European football championships.

Despite the bureaucratic headache, the final race day proved a thrilling finale, and after seven days and 1,221km in the saddle, Kim Kirchen from Luxembourg won the Tour by just five seconds, with Pieter Weening in second, followed by Thomas Dekker in third.