Seth Dunwoody had a monster day out front in Romania, but he came undone at the last when one of his rivals put it up to the breakaway men
The one prize Seth Dunwoody (Bahrain Victorious Development) wanted on the opening day of Turul Romaniei (2.2) – stage victory – was the only one that evaded him. Though the 19-year-old looked by far the strongest in the breakaway, for 150km, he was undone by events in the final.
Dunwoody cleaned up at the intermediate sprints and at the climbers’ primes where, simply put, nobody could get close to him. However, he will rue the stage win, and race leader’s jersey, slipped through his hands.
Though Dunwoody initially had team mate, Ahmed Naser, in the breakaway with him when the escape group numbered 15 riders, Naser was among five riders who lost their place in the front group through the stage. And the Irishman really paid the price of being on his own at the finish.
Deep inside the final kilometre, and with the bunch breathing down the necks of the 10 surviving breakaway men, Austria’s Maximilian Schmidbauer (WSA KTM Graz) launched a stinging attack on the left side of the road.
Maximilian Schmidbauer from WSA KTM Graz wins #TurulRomaniei stage 1 with a late attack from the breakaway pic.twitter.com/WqvC5L5mHP
— Turul României (@turulromaniei) September 10, 2025
And though he never managed to get more than a few seconds, he had the legs to keep it going all the way to the line. Dunwoody opened his sprint from a long way out, leading it out very early in a bid to catch the line attacker.
However, the line just came a few metres too early for the Irishman, who just came up short in his bid to overhaul Schmidbauer. Tobiasz Pawlak (Voster ATS Team) was 3rd in what was a blanket finish between the top three.
Former Irish TT champion Conn McDunphy (Team Skyline) is also in the race – after a strong ride at last weekend’s Maryland Classic in the US – and he finished in the bunch today, which was strangely awarded the same time as all of the breakaway men.
Though Dunwoody had to be content with 2nd, and 2nd overall after the first of five stages, he claimed maximum points on the three modest climbs, and also monstered the intermediate sprints. And that means he leads the points and climbers’ classifications.
However, this is a race that can really suit Dunwoody, with as many as three of four stages to come suited to his characteristics. The only stage that does not automatically suit him comes tomorrow, where there is a 5.4km climb to finish, though most of the last 35km is uphill.
Today, the 15-rider breakaway had established itself 25km into the stage. However, though it was a large group, they never gained much more than 1:30, though for most of their time out front the gap was much smaller. Indeed, with 20km to go, the leaders had just 20 seconds, but they somehow just about stayed clear.
It appeared there were small time gaps between riders in the breakaway at the finish, and another small gap back to the front of the peloton – which almost caught the back of the breakaway on the line. However, at the time of writing all of the riders in the breakaway, and everyone in the bunch, were all given the same time.
With time bonuses factored in, Schmidbauer leads the overall by four seconds from Dunwoody. Pawlak is 3rd at six seconds, followed by 100 riders all equal on time at 10 seconds.