As the winner of the first stage, he was awarded the yellow jersey as leader of the general classification. Many other cyclists who finished at the front of the peloton achieved the same result.
Second place in the sprint finish went to Liam Punnewaert of the Hubo–Scott Cycling Team (Belgium). Alessio Menghini of Team Technipes (Italy) finished third. They all recorded the same time, but they also received 10, 6 and 4 bonus seconds respectively, according to data on procyclingstats.com.
Moldovan-born Cristian Raianu, leader of the Romanian national team, also matched the result of the top three. He finished in the main group and took 11th place.
The best performer in the Moldovan national team was Gennady Morgun, who finished in the main group alongside the winners with the same time. He is currently in 30th place in the general classification.
Unfortunately, this stage proved extremely gruelling for the Moldovan national team: due to the high pace (the average speed in the first hour exceeded 47 km/h), three riders from the team – Andrei Vrabi, Andrei Kovalchuk and Ilie Sheremet – were forced to withdraw from the race, whilst Semen Kulichenko failed to finish within the time limit.
Consequently, alongside Gennady Morgun, only Ilya Novikov remains in the Moldovan team to continue the stage race.
As reported by Logos Press, for the first time in its history, the 2026 Turul României started in Chișinău (from the Maria Bieșu National Opera and Ballet Theatre), and the first stage followed the route from Chișinău to Ungheni via the Ialoveni, Hîncești, Călărași and Ungheni districts.
More than 130 cyclists from 16 countries, comprising 23 teams, took to the start line.
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