(Photo Public Domain)
Italy’s Mauro Finetto, of Southeast Pro Cycling team, won the fifth Sibiu Cycling Tour in Romania. The race was first held in 2011 around the city of Sibiu in four daily stages, which included a first stage on the city’s paved roads, two stages on the mountain road, one on the Balea Lac road and the other to the mountain resort of Paltinis.
Finetto won the final race in a time of 17h 13′ 48, while his competitor Davide Rebellin, CCC-Sprandi-Polkowice team’s cyclist came the second place with a 12 second difference. The Romanian Serghei Tvetcov, of Adria Mobil, came in third, 19 seconds later than the first place champion.
The champion of the race Auro Finetto was able to get the yellow shirt, as he won the race’s general rankings, and the white shirt for achieving the highest number of points in addition to the green shirt for his lead in the heights competitions.
Tvetcov won the red shirt for being in the lead against other Romanian cyclists in the race.
The Italian Giovanni Carboni was named the best under-23 cyclist in the race, which earned him the orange shirt, while Germany’s Robert Kessler won the blue shirt for winning the speed races.
It is of note that this year’s tour was held over five days for the first time, whereas last year’s winning teams participated, including Adria Mobil, CCC Sprandi Polkowice, Verandas Willems,and Parkhotel Valkenburg in this tour, in addition to Southeast Pro Cycling team.
The Brazilian, Rafael Andriato, of the Southeas Pro Cycling team, was in the lead for the 2.2km time trials in the first day of the race. On the second day, the first stage of the race was on middle height ground and extended over 224.2km. This stage’s winner was the Italian Oscar Gatto, of the team Androni Giocattoli. Romania’s Eduars Grosu was the winner with the best time for this round.
On the third day of the competition, the second round, which ran for 152.1km amongst the Paltinis mountains, was won by the Italian Mauro Finetto of the Southeast Pro Cycling team, who also achieved the best timing for this round.
In the third round of the race along the Balea Lac road, which extends for 161.9km, the winner was Italy’s Alessio Taliani of the Androni-Sidermec team. His competitor Mauro Finetto was able to win the general ranking for this round.
During the last day of the race, which ran for 143km on the flat ground of the Poplaca racetrack, the Italian Oscar Gatto won the race again, while Finetto achieved the best timing in the round.
