David Lozano comes close to the King of the Mountains jersey at the Tour de Hongrie

03 September 2020

Race: Tour de Hongrie

Start / Finish: Miskolc – Gyongyos-Kekesteto

Distance: 188km

A great five days of racing at the Tour de Hongrie, Team Novo Nordisk’s David Lozano almost capped off the race in style with the King of the Mountains jersey. The Spanish climber even attended the podium ceremony and received all the accolades before the race jury awarded the jersey to overall race winner, Atilla Valter (CCC Team). Lozano took the red mountains jersey on the opening day of racing and the entire team into Wednesday’s stage determined to defend.

“It is unfortunate to come this close to bringing home the jersey. I was absolutely ecstatic; over the moon,” said Lozano. “There’s no better way than a podium to show the world that we can compete against the best even with diabetes. We worked so well as a team, we were always together and today was the toughest stage of the race.

It came down to the wire on the last day of racing and after taking third place in the first GPM, Lozano jumped again on the second climb to take points followed by teammate Charles Planet who mopped up the remaining points to stop anyone else from making up ground on Lozano.

However, eventual race winner Atilla Valter (CCC Team) accumulated the same points by winning the stage. In a tiebreaker, Valter won the mountain classification because he won the stage and the overall.

“The whole team did a great job today, everything I asked, they did,” began Massimo Podenzana. “It’s so important for our team to show ourselves in this way and these are the results that matter. To come so close to winning together as a team is slightly disappointing, but we held that jersey for four stages and we showed our sponsors proudly in the battle.”

“Everybody deserves a mention, they all did their jobs throughout the race, Sam Brand, Andrea Peron, Peter Kusztor, Joonas Henttala and of course David and Charles. It was a hard race against top teams. When we needed to today, we made the race and did our best to get David in the right position. They are heroes, every one of them.”

Lozano crossed the line at the summit, totally spent after giving everything for 188 kilometers with one objective in mind– Staying in red.

“It started so fast today and was uphill. After battling to either get in or control the break for the first hour, the first GPM arrived out of nowhere so to get up there and take points really boosted my confidence,” concluded Lozano. “When I crossed the line, I really thought we had done enough especially with the points from the second GPM, but it wasn’t meant to be.”