The Tour of Austria ended with the Feldkirch-Feldkirch stage. On the last day, a high and a first-category mountain awaited for the bunch, but both of the climbs were in the first half of the route.
Unlike Saturday, Team United Shipping was not there in the breakaway this time. However, this attack was the only successful attempt of the race: Bob Jungels from Ineos powered to a solo victory ahead of the UAE led peloton.
Meanwhile, the situation did not go too well for TUS at the back. For various reasons, only Bálint Feldhoffer from our team finished the Tour of Austria. Bálint finished in 69th place overall. The tour was won by Isaac Del Toro.
Palumby Zsombor:
The mood is not so good, but we gave our maximum today as well, this is what it was enough for. The reason for giving up in my case – and this is basically true for everyone – is that I overextended myself in the first three days because I tried to get into the breakaway. We were fighting alone against World Tour squads and motivated Austrian teams. In addition, the three cold rainy days have now taken their toll.
My legs are completely exhausted by today. We started in the rain with a high-category climb. My head would have said push, but my body was completely at zero and I was dropped with Erik on the sixth kilometer of the climb. Then the others too one-by-one. It is also worth noting that the race jury did not really adhere to their own 15% time limit rule and pulled entire groups, who would’ve easily finished. But significant differences did really emerge thanks to the UAE’s show of power.
It was a memorable week for sure. It was amazing to compete at this level, but what UAE did felt a bit excessive. They can win at any time with this team, yet they barely let any breakaways get more than a few tens of kilometers ahead.
I think the race was a bit underestimated in terms of the resources needed, especially with this level of intensity and the transfers involved. All this will certainly build into future fitness, but now there’s a lot to recover from. An epic breakaway would have been fantastic in such a serious race, and I’d like to make that happen in the future.
Fetter Erik:
The fatigue set in and UAE didn’t slow down today either. It was a huge fight again to get into the breakaway and the chase started right away, so we started the high category mountain at a high pace. Quite a few people dropped out of the field, including me. My legs were so tired that I couldn’t go any further. Probably after the rain in the third stage and yesterday’s breakaway, my body didn’t have enough time to regenerate.
Anyway, I think our week was good, this was our most brutal race so far. As a small team, I think we did well. We were in action, Bálint almost made the top 10 on one stage, I also went in a breakaway. Obviously it could have been better, but with this line-up, UAE could fight for a podium at the Tour de France.
📷Photos: Gergely Schöff