| 2017 Sibiu Cycling Tour | |
| Series: | 2017 UCI Europe Tour |
| Date: | 5–9 July 2017 |
| Stages: | 5 |
| Distance: | 734 |
| Unit: | km |
| Time: | 18h 19' 33" |
| Speed: | 40.05 |
| First: | Egan Bernal |
| First Nat: | COL |
| First Color: | yellow |
| Second: | Colin Stüssi |
| Second Nat: | SUI |
| Third: | Valentin Baillifard |
| Third Nat: | SUI |
| Points: | Egan Bernal |
| Points Nat: | COL |
| Points Color: | white |
| Mountains: | Moritz Fußnegger |
| Mountains Nat: | GER |
| Mountains Color: | green |
| Youth: | Egan Bernal |
| Youth Nat: | COL |
| Youth Color: | orange |
| Sprints: | Damian Lüscher |
| Sprints Nat: | SUI |
| Sprints Color: | blue |
| Previous: | 2016 |
| Next: | 2018 |
The 2017 Sibiu Cycling Tour was a cycling stage race that took place between 5 and 9 July 2017 in and around Sibiu, Romania. Raced over 734km (456miles), the race featured a traditional cobbled prologue along with mountain stages to Bâlea Lake and Păltiniș, and was held as part of the 2017 UCI Europe Tour.[1]
The race was won by Colombian climber Egan Bernal, riding for the squad.[2] Bernal took the race lead after winning the second stage of the race, the queen stage, to the summit finish at Bâlea Lake; he then further extended his lead by winning the following day to Păltiniș. Bernal ultimately won the race by 1 minute, 40 seconds ahead of rider Colin Stüssi, with the podium being completed by another rider, Valentin Baillifard, a further 35 seconds behind.
Bernal's performances were enough for him to win two other jerseys, winning the points and young rider classifications. In the race's other sub-classifications, Moritz Fußnegger from was the winner of the mountains classification, Damian Lüscher was the winner of the sprints classification, while were the winners of the teams classification.
Initially, 21 teams were invited to the race. The peloton featured three Professional Continental Teams, 17 Continental Teams and a Romanian national team, including for the first time, teams from North America.[3] [4]
However, and did not compete, which left the starting peloton at 19 teams.[5]
The race route was announced in December 2016.
| Stage | Date | Course | Distance | Type | Winner | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| P | 5 July | Sibiu to Sibiu | 2.3km (01.4miles) | Individual time trial | |||
| 1 | 6 July | Sibiu to Sibiu | 211.8km (131.6miles) | Medium-mountain stage | |||
| 2 | 7 July | Sibiu to Bâlea Lake | 160km (100miles) | Mountain stage | |||
| 3 | 8 July | Sibiu to Păltiniș | 211.5km (131.4miles) | Mountain stage | |||
| 4 | 9 July | Sibiu to Sibiu | 148.4km (92.2miles) | Medium-mountain stage | |||
The first stage covered 211.8km (131.6miles) of rolling terrain including 7 categorised climbs. After 40km (30miles) of the stage, two riders – Edwin Ávila and Moritz Fußnegger – broke away from the peloton building up at one stage a 6 minute advantage. With over 30km (20miles) of the race remaining Ávila attacked on his own and soloed to a stage win, holding off the chasing peloton who finished 43 seconds behind.[7]
Soon afterwards, overall leader Edwin Ávila was dropped by the small leading group and with 6km (04miles) remaining a pair of riders – Daniel Jaramillo and Gabriel Reguero – attacked. A counter-attack from Egan Bernal saw him catch and then pass the two escapees, and he continued to build a lead over the chasing group. The other contenders were unable to respond and Bernal won the stage by over a minute.[8]
An early breakaway of five riders, including the leader of the mountains classification, Moritz Fußnegger built up a lead of around 7 minutes. By the penultimate climb at Jina, the remainder of the breakaway had a 1' 30" advantage over the chasing peloton, before being caught and passed by two attackers – Simon Pellaud and Andrea Borso . This pair in turn were caught by a small group of riders with 10km (10miles) remaining and from that group it was once more Egan Bernal who attacked in the closing stages, and with the rest of the riders unable to respond, claimed his second successive stage victory, further extending his overall lead.
In the 2017 Sibiu Cycling Tour, six different jerseys were awarded. The most important was the general classification, which was calculated by adding each cyclist's finishing times on each stage. Time bonuses were awarded to the first three finishers on all stages with the exception of the time trial: the stage winner won a ten-second bonus, with six and four seconds for the second and third riders respectively.[6] Bonus seconds were also awarded to the first three riders at intermediate sprints; three seconds for the winner of the sprint, two seconds for the rider in second and one second for the rider in third.[6] The rider with the least accumulated time is the race leader, identified by a yellow jersey.[6] This classification was considered the most important of the 2017 Sibiu Cycling Tour, and the winner of the classification was considered the winner of the race.
| Position | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Points for | 20 | 18 | 16 | 14 | 12 | 10 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 5 |
| Points for | 12 | 8 | 6 | 4 | 2 | 0 | ||||
| Points for | 6 | 4 | 2 | 0 | ||||||
| Points for | 3 | 2 | 1 | |||||||
Additionally, there was a points classification, which awarded a white jersey.[6] In the points classification, cyclists received points for finishing in the top 15 in a stage, and unlike in the points classification in the Tour de France, the winners of all stages (with the exception of the prologue) were awarded the same number of points. For winning a stage, a rider earned 25 points, with 20 for second, 16 for third, 14 for fourth, 12 for fifth, 10 for sixth with a point fewer per place down to a single point for 15th place.[6] The fifth classification was the sprints classification, the leader of which was awarded a blue jersey.[6] In the sprints classification, riders received points for finishing in the top three at intermediate sprint points during each stage – awarded on a 3–2–1 scale – and these intermediate sprints also offered bonus seconds towards the general classification as noted above.
The sixth and final jersey represented the classification for Romanian riders, marked by a red jersey. This was decided the same way as the general classification, but only riders born in Romania were eligible to be ranked in the classification.[6] There was also a team classification, in which the times of the best three cyclists per team on each stage were added together; the leading team at the end of the race was the team with the lowest total time.[6]
| Stage | Winner | General classification | Points classification | Mountains classification | Young rider classification | Sprints classification | Teams classification | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| scope=row | P[9] | Andrea Palini[10] | Andrea Palini | Not awarded | Not awarded | Gašper Katrašnik | Not awarded | Eduard-Michael Grosu | |
| scope=row | 1[11] | Edwin Ávila | Edwin Ávila | Edwin Ávila | Moritz Fußnegger | Edwin Ávila | |||
| scope=row | 2[12] | Egan Bernal | Egan Bernal | Egan Bernal | Egan Bernal | Germán Tivani | |||
| scope=row | 3[13] | Egan Bernal | |||||||
| scope=row | 4[14] | Eduard-Michael Grosu | Damian Lüscher | ||||||
| Final | Egan Bernal | Egan Bernal[15] | Moritz Fußnegger[16] | Egan Bernal[17] | Damian Lüscher[18] | Eduard-Michael Grosu[19] | [20] | ||