Yesterday the Tour of Austria ended with the traditional finish in Wien.
Omar Bertazzo (Androni Giocattoli-Venezuela) surprised by winning the sprint in front of the Burgtheater, while Riccardo Zoidl made it through the stage without trouble to take the biggest win of his career so far.
“About 500 m from the finish line I relaxed, and realized for the first time: I’ve won the Tour of Austria. A big thank you to my teammates who supported me very well,” the jubilant Zoidl said to the race website.
At an age of 25 years, Zoidl is truly having a breakout season. He started with a second place in the Trofej Porec in March, and hasn’t looked back since: He finished 5th in the Settimana Coppi e Bartali, amidst riders from WorldTour and Professional Continental teams, and later won the Circuit des Ardennes and the Tour de Bretagne.
He started the month of June with an 8th place in the GP Südkärnten, but after that he’s won every Austrian UCI race. He started with the GP Judendorf/Straßengel and the Oberösterreichrundfahrt before winning the Austrian national championships.
At the Tour of Austria, Zoidl was again the best Continental rider by far, keeping up with the more experienced professionals and finishing in the top-5 on all three mountaintop finishes. And with a good ITT on the penultimate day, he was able to take the leader’s jersey from Kevin Seeldraeyers (Astana), becoming the first Austrian winner of the country’s national tour since 2008.
With the range of his abilities firmly established, Zoidl is now looking at contract offers for 2014: “It could be a WorldTour team as well as a Professional Continental squad. I haven’t decided yet, we’ll have some talks over the next couple of days. But I have several contract offers at home already,” he told Radsport-News.com.
While the destination of this outstanding talent isn’t clear yet, it’s almost sure that we’ll see more from him in the future.
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