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Lesser known races thread 2022

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We currently also have the ultra-mythical Tour of Albania going on at the moment, a 5-stage race through the Balkan Adriatic nation. How ultra-mythical? Well... PCS lists this as the 77th Tour of Albania, the Albanian federation's social media lists LAST year's as the 78th, and their website is filled with details of the 75th Tour of Albania which took place in 2019.

So it's either the 77th, 78th or 79th Tour of Albania depending on which source you take.

Although the startlists rose a bit when Eugert Zhupa and Redi Halilaj were racing in Italy, at the moment the highest profile Albanian rider is Ylber Sefa, who has been riding for Tarteletto-Isorex and is now on an Elite-2 team in Belgium; as a result there are fewer guest teams from Italy coming over and more small teams from the Balkans (and Meridiana-Kamen), although the Steaua Bucharest team has Daniel Crista, Criștian Raileanu and Serguei Țvetcov moonlighting in it and Elchin Asadov is in the Azerbaijani national team.

In the first stage, from Tirana to Korçë via the shores of Lake Ohrid, Sefa took the stage win and the opening leader's jersey from a group of 4 in which much younger Albanian national team colleague Mikel Demiri (just 21) helped them build up a two and a half minute advantage over the bunch. In the end Sefa outsprinted Raileanu and Demiri with British elite amateur rider Archie Cross bringing up the rear.