Lennert van Eetvelt (Lotto Dstny) claimed a solo stage 2 victory at the Sibiu Cycling Tour on the mountaintop finish at Bâlea Lac and moved into the race lead.
Q36.5 Pro Cycling teammates Matteo Badilatti and Mark Donovan crossed the line 24 seconds later for second and third places, respectively, as the 23.6km final climb on the Transfăgărășan Road to 2,040 metres in altitude shredded the peloton.
The 21-year-old Belgian attacked from the peloton with three kilometres to go, and never faltered on the steep road. He came into Romania on top form having won the GC at Alpes Isère Tour in May while on the Lotto Dstny Development team. On Friday he earned the mountains classification jersey along with the leader’s yellow jersey after the 155km journey to the high elevation of the Carpathian Mountains.
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"As a team, we were really looking forward to this nice mountain stage, and I was feeling very good throughout the day. I enjoyed this climb, felt better and better the longer the climb went on. I had so much fun, and I'm really happy to finish it off with a win today," Van Eetvelt said at the finish. "It's my first professional win, something which I was really looking forward to for this season. I am super happy to get it here."
Friday’s stage 2 opened with limited attacks and the main breakaway did not form until an hour of racing was completed and 100km remained, with the peloton closing in on a climb at Pelisor. The front group of nine included Corey Davis (Q36.5 Pro Cycling), Lorenzo Di Camillo (Sofer Savini Due OMZ), Jakub Kaczmarek (HRE Mazowsze /Serce Polski), Jordy Bouts (TDT-Unibet Cycling), Silas Köch (Saris Rouvy Sauerland), Jensen Plowright (Alpecin-Deceuninck Development), Félix Stehli (EF Education-NIPPO Development), Jan Kašpar (ATT Investments) and Antti-Jussi Juntunen (ABLOC CT).
While the group of nine pounded out the miles pass through Ruși. Mediaș and Agnita before heading south towards the hors categorie ascent to the finish, Bora-Hansgrohe led the chase behind in the peloton, closing the gap to 1:35 with 35km to go.
On the lower slopes of the Transfăgărășan Road, the peloton reeled back the front group and Jakub Otruba (ATT Investments) attacked. He maintained a gap of 40 seconds for the next 10km of the twisting road with the steepest parts at 12% and continued his solo effort with just 5km to go.
With 3km to go the steady acceleration of the chasers paid off and Otruba was caught. Van Eetvelt sailed away on the final slopes to victory.
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