Welcome to the Austrian National Championships Road Race. Just 22 riders will start here today, most of which are racing individually, although Sauber will have 5 riders and Volkswagen two 4 rider teams competing today. The mountainous course means that Denifl is easily the favourite today, although the favourite doesn’t always win national championships races.
The race starts and Eibegger attacks to form a break, Konrad, Weiss, Schoffmann, Haller, Hofer, Eisel and Muhlberger all chase. Konrad, Schoffmann and Haller catch Eibegger while the rest remain in no-mans land. Volkaswagen lead the peloton in chase.
With 20km left the quartet up front have 2 mintues on the next riders Weiss and Eisel and 8 minutes on the peloton.
Haller isn’t really up to the climbing ability of these three and gets dropped with 15km left while these three maintain a similar gap to those behind them.
5km left for the break so it looks like they’ll contest the finish, given they have over 8 minutes on the peloton. Kohl, however, still believes and attacks the peloton, who are still on the penultimate climb.
With 4 kilometres to go Schoffmann begins the hostilities, attacking him companions, Eibegger paces them back together, but they have started racing for the win now.
Schoffmann goes again with 2km to go and this time looks stronger, the other two continue to pace themselves.
Eibegger again brings them back together as they reach the flamme rouge, so the race will come down to a sprint!
With 700 metres left Eibegger launches and gaps the other two, who weren’t ready for the acceleration.
They can’t catch him and Eibegger wins the Austrian national championships! Schoffmann just holds Konrad off in the sprint for second. Only the first ten riders would finish today.
Up now is the Intermediate Time Trial, the favourite here is Brändle, although both Hofer and Zoidl could contest the win.
Zoidl is first off and not being a bad time-trialist he finishes in 1h08’01 setting the time to beat today.
Rohregger hits the line 3’04 slower than his teammate Zoidl but with the second-best time so far.
Brändle has set off but surpringly the defending can’t top Zoidl’s times at the first two time checks being 7 seconds down at the first and 16 seconds slower at the second.
Hofer 1’42 down on Zoidl in second when he hits the line, much slower than expected given the two are of similar ability in time trials.
Brändle can’t make up his deficit and finishes second 11 seconds down, as the last rider to finish today. So Zoidl wins the Austrian national ITT championships!
