New Finnish champion Henttala to debut national jersey at Sibiu Tour
01 July 2021
Newly crowned champion of Finland Joonas Henttala is proudly set to give the first outing to his new jersey for Team Novo Nordisk at the upcoming Sibiu Cycling Tour in Romania.
The world’s first all diabetes professional cycling team line up for their first appearance at what will be the 10th edition of the four-day stage race that runs entirely in and around the historic city and the surrounding hills.
“It’s really exciting for us to be racing at the Sibiu Tour for the first time,” said General Manager Vassili Davidenko. “We love going to new places and spreading our message to help change diabetes and inspire, educate and empower everyone affected around the world, so to be able to do that for that the first time in Romania is really special.”
“Joonas is the first of our riders to win a national championship while racing for Team Novo Nordisk and the Sibiu Tour will be his first race in his new Finnish champions jersey, so we will be making history at the weekend in more ways the one!”
On the subject of national champions, former Hungarian road champion Peter Kusztor lines up on the back of last weekend’s GP Citta di Lugano alongside Spanish climber David Lozano and Italian sprinter Andrea Peron.
“I am looking forward to taking part in this race for the first time,” began Peron. “I’ve heard quite a bit about it from Peter who did well here some years ago and he said that it’s a beautiful race with some really hard and diverse terrain.”
“After crashing quite hard in Estonia, I had a period of recuperation and training at home in Padova before GP Lugano last Sunday. Lugano was tough, but the idea was to test my knee and see if it held up and whether there were any lingering problems. There wasn’t, which is great and apart from missing a little top-end race rhythm I feel ready to go.”
Young Australian Declan Irvine has enjoyed some excellent performances in staring of recent races and completes the line up with 24-year-old Veronese Umberto Poli.
The Sibiu Cycling Tour kicks off with a short downtown prologue run over the ancient city center cobbles before heading out into the hilly surrounding countryside for three long road stages and a challenging summit finish at Paltinis coming early on stage two.
Team Novo Nordisk at the Sibiu Cycling Tour, 3rd – 6th July:
Joonas Henttala (FIN, 29)
Declan Irvine (AUS, 22)
Peter Kusztor (HUN, 36)
David Lozano (ESP, 32)
Andrea Peron (IT, 32)
Umberto Poli (IT, 24)
Stages:
Saturday 3rd July, Stage 1 – Prologue: Sibiu, 2.5km
Sunday 4th July, Stage 2: Sibiu – Paltinis, 177.9km
Monday 5th July, Stage 3: Sibiu – Balea Lac, 187.5km
Tuesday 6th July, Stage 4: Sibiu – Sibiu, 205.3km