The Tour of Austria’s 7th stage would only be a short one at 124km in length but the racing would be fast and furious. In the end it was a big 21 rider break that would decide the day with Lukas Pöstlberger (Tirol) taking the stage win ahead of Eduard Vorganov (Katusha) and Moreno Moser (Cannondale).
The large group of 21 riders escaped just after the only categorised climb of the day, a cat 4 climb coming with 23km completed. MTN-Qhubeka p/b Samsung had our South African rider, Jaco Venter represented in the big move. It was rather interesting that the peloton let such a large group gain just over three minutes on them, with the possibility of surviving to the finish increasing with each passing kilometer.
The big lead group worked well together initially but would start attacking one another when they realised at 20km to go that their chances of taking the stage were really good. With so many riders in the break, and all of them still relatively fresh after such a short stage it was tough to get away.
It was only in the final 3km that a move would finally stick as Postelberger rode clear. It only took a slight hesitation by the group to start chasing and it was too late. The Tirol rider arrived 12 seconds ahead of the chasers with Jaco crossing the line 11th. Gerald Ciolek led the bunch home 1’09” later.
Jaco Venter – Rider
