German Continental team Bike AID climber Anton Schiffer took his first professional stage win, beating Matthew Riccitello and strong competition on Stage 3 of the Sibiu Tour.
It was the second consecutive climbing day in the Sibiu Cycling Tour, featuring the Păltiniș climb (8.75 km at 6.47%). Similar to the Balea Lac stage yesterday, the pace was high already in the first third of the ascent, with the group splitting and Matthew Riccitello attacking from the bottom. He was followed by Anton Schiffer and David De La Cruz, who was later dropped.
Riccitello did most of the work on the climb, as he was the race leader, while Schiffer — who had to switch bikes before the HC climb yesterday and crashed in the final 100 meters of Stage 2 — was looking to recover lost time. In the end, Schiffer launched a late sprint to win by 3 seconds, with Riccitello finishing second but extending his overall lead.
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Riccitello produced the best performance with 6.78 ᵉW/kg for 19:31, while Schiffer did 6.63 ᵉW/kg, benefitting from more drafting. After dropping everyone except Harold Martin Lopez on a very high-kilojoule stage at the Tour of Hellas, not winning the 2024 Zwift Academy against Mattia Gaffuri and eventual winner Louis Kitzki, and performing well in other races despite some bad luck, Schiffer seems set to step up to professional level, after transitioning from triathlon a few years ago.
That’s pretty weak… he didn’t “beat him”. Riccitello pulled him up the entire climb and Schiffrt jumped him at the finish line. You should give credit where credit’s due!
The idea was to win the stage, no?
Who cares about some mickey mouse tour. Where tour de France?
Thanks for covering some of the minor Races and making an effort to show what a good rider Anton is.
To the rest: everyone is covering world tour and Tour de France. Riccitello and Schiffer did very good work here so show some respect for some CT riders 🙂
Bravo pour vos analyses.