Victory for Zabelinskiy, easy win for Christoforou at Cyprus Gran Fondo

Bogdan Zabelinskiy of Agios Mnasonas produced an epic comeback on the final day and won the men’s general classification of the Skoda Cyprus Gran Fondo 2022.

Andri Christoforou of APOEL easily maintained her dominance in the women’s category.

The biggest cycling event of Cyprus concluded at noon on Sunday in Paphos. 234 semi-professional athletes from 27 countries took part.

Zabelinskiy, the son of Olga Zabelinskaya, a three-time Olympic medalist who lives permanently in Cyprus, entered the final day in fifth place. However, on the 54km final route he opened a two-and-a-half-minute gap between himself and Zakarin and Loda who followed, leaving them in second and third place respectively.

Aidar Zakarin is the brother of Russian professional cyclist Ilnur Zakarin while the Italian Loda is 51 years old and participates in the race almost every year since 2013 when it was organised for the first time.

Michalis Theocharous of the Famagusta Cycling Club was the best-placed Cypriot.

Fastest on day 1 was Zakarin, on day 2 the Swiss Bourgeois and on the third day Zabelinskiy – who covered the distance of 170.6 km in 4:18:13.91.

AChristoforou finished 14th overall and was the top-ranked woman (4:33:29.06) ahead of Britain’s Matea Deliu and Italy’s Elena Pancari.

In the group standings, in the mixed teams, APOEL was first with Christoforou, Antoniou and Thymidis and in the men’s team category, Inex with Zakarin, Slepov and Kudryavtsev finished on top.

It’s worth noting that Zabelinskiy also won the Gran Fondo Apollo – Aphrodite last October in Limassol.

The other categories:

In the Sportive category where beginners took part, first place went to German Adrian Czibere in 5:14:32.89 and the best woman was Ifigenia Stylianou of APOEL in 6:27:34.09. The Sportive class covered 206km. On the first day they were not timed individually but competed in a 54km route.

On Sunday a one-day race of a shorter distance (45km) and with a lower degree of difficulty took place, the first Cyprus Medio Fondo, where Latvian Artjoms Gajevskis won, with Brit Melanie Smith taking the women’s honours.

Present at the award ceremony was the president of the Cyprus Cycling Federation George Georgiou, who takes part every year in the race, as well as Michalis Hadjioannou, director of the organising company Activate Cyprus.

The event was this year’s first European race on the UCI Gran Fondo World Series international calendar with the top rider from each age group qualifying for the final in Trento, Italy in September.

For more information and results, please visit www.activatecyprus.com/granfondocyprus and www.facebook.com/cyprusgranfondo.

The Skoda Cyprus Gran Fondo was organised for the first time since 2019, following a two-year hiatus due to the pandemic.

The event was organised by Activate Cyprus with Skoda Cyprus as named sponsors and the Ministry of Tourism as the major sponsor. The event was under the auspices of the Cyprus Cycling Federation. Sponsors were the Municipality of Paphos, the insurance company Atlantic, the specialised shop for cyclists Cyclo and UNICARS.

It was supported by ETAP Paphos, Shimano bicycles, NAMEDSPORT sports nutrition products, while the event was warmly hosted by the communities of Kouklia, Tsada and Nikoklia.

The Larnaca Anti-Drug Association and the Motolife Tours Cyprus Association volunteered for another year.