Sibiu Tour Queen Stage shakes up race on climb to Balea Lac

04 July 2022

The epic Transfăgărășan road is one of the most spectacular in Europe and climbs up over 2,000 altitude meters to Bâlea Lac. This road defines the Queen Stage of Sibiu Cycling Tour and today’s third day of racing was no different.

Team Novo Nordisk worked hard to keep team leader David Lozano in the best position possible going onto the climb, but the Catalan would have to do the rest. Climbing for close to 25km, the road takes no prisoners and Lozano went deep to finish close to the leading group.

David Lozano (ESP):

“At times It feels never ending this climb, you come out of the trees after the first 10km and you’re feeling ok. Then you come out of a corner and see the next 10km rising up in front of you like a wall of switchbacks.”

“It was tougher than last year today, I came close to dropping like a stone in the last 10km, but I managed to recover a little and ride my own tempo to the finish. The group got small really quickly on the climb and we were split all over the road at the end, but chapeau to Bora. They made the race hard today and finished it off.”

General manager Vassili Davidenko:

“David did a solid job today. We were under no illusions about hard it was going to be and his task was to stay with the leaders for as long as possible on the climb and he did that.”

“One more day to go and it’s going to be interesting with the split stage format. Individual time trial in the morning and a short 100km road stage late afternoon. Our objective will be to try and go for Matyas if it comes down to a sprint in the afternoon, so let’s just get round in the TT and save some energy for the second part.”