Stormy day over the Romanian climbs on stage one of Sibiu Tour

There was to be no ‘easing in’ to the first road stage of the 2022 Sibiu Cycling Tour, 206km and four categorized climbs defined a tough first stage for Team Novo Nordisk with Spanish climber David Lozano coming through in the best shape ahead of tomorrow’s Queen Stage.

David Lozano (ESP):

“You could see from the profile that it was going to be a hard day today, but the combination of the storms and the hard early climb made it very tough. Unfortunately, I broke my front wheel on the first descent, but managed to stay upright and thanks to a quick wheel change by our mechanic Sergio, I didn’t lose too much ground. But it kind of characterized the day for us.”

“A lot of guys got dropped after the first climb and then we had three more to deal with, so even though the peloton was pretty big it never fully reformed going into the final. Matyas fought really hard, but he fell back on the last steep climb and finished just a little behind me in the end and a day like today is great experience for him.”

General manager Vassili Davidenko:

“After a really positive start yesterday in the prologue we had a rude awakening today on what was a hard day out, but the guys responded well and tried their best to follow the plan.”

“It was important to let the big teams control things, stay as sheltered as possible and do what we could to help Matyas in the final, but the race split a few times on the climbs, the rain came down and it turned into a real battle. David rode well and came home first with Matyas close behind and everyone dug deep on a very difficult stage.”