Ireland’s Conn McDunphy, above, and compatriot Seth Dunwoody both took an aggressive approach to the queen stage today (Photo: Nassos Triantafyllou)

Conn McDunphy (Team Skyline) and Seth Dunwoody (Bahrain Victorious Development) both took an aggressive approach to Thursday’s queen stage at Turul Romaniei (2.2), with McDunphy going up the road for about 50km.

Though the former Irish elite TT champion had a tight turnaround between riding the Maryland Classic in the US – where he was 24th against the World Tour teams – on Sunday and starting in Romania yesterday, he has clearly shook off any jetlag.

And though today’s hilly stage didn’t suit Dunwoody, who was 2nd yesterday, he took advantage of the early opportunities to hoover up more points at the intermediate sprints.

He took maximum points in the first sprint – in Topoloveni, some 14.6km into the 172km stage. That extended his lead in the points classification ahead of what could be two more chances of a stage win over the weekend.

After Dunwoody contested, and won that first intermediate sprint, two leaders forged clear and built a gap of over three minutes. They were still clear at the second sprint point, at Manga after 96.8km. However, Dunwoody won the bunch kick for 3rd to add more points to his tally.

McDunphy was active later in the stage, run off in wet conditions. He made his move after the first breakaway of the day was caught on the second categorised climb, of four, about 115km into the action.

He went clear in a group of seven with about 55km to go, getting up the road just after the second climb. And by the time McDunphy and the other breakaway men reached the third small climb of the day – crested with just over 35km to go to the finish – they had a gap of about 1:10.

However, they never got much further ahead. Their efforts not helped by the fact almost all of the final 35km was uphill, even if the final climb up to the finish line did not officially start until 5.4km to go.

With today’s stage the only clear chance for the climbers – and the main opportunity to lay a claim to a general classification result – several teams were motivated to bring the breakaway back. McDunphy and the others were caught with about 5km to go, leading to a series of counter attacks.

With gaps opening through the field on the final climb to the line, Philipp Hofbauer (WSA KTM Graz) eventually forged clear with Cesare Chesini (MBH Bank Ballan CSB) and Colin Stüssi (Team Vorarlberg).

Chesini edged out Hofbauer for victory in a tight sprint to the line, with Stüssi 3rd at two seconds. McDunphy finished 21st at 2:55 while Dunwoody was 62nd at 16:21.

There are several small climbs tomorrow, including the final one – some 5.5km averaging 5.2 per cent gradient –  some 35km from the finish. And that may scupper Dunwoody and the other sprinters, and offer an opportunity to riders like McDunphy.

However, Saturday’s and Sunday’s stages are flatter and should offer a chance to Dunwoody to aim for a stage win after being narrowly beaten for victory yesterday.

Cesare Chesini won today’s queen stage of the 2025 #TurulRomaniei. Here’s a look at how it happened. pic.twitter.com/myjiNXgMlB

— Turul României (@turulromaniei) September 11, 2025