Two days after winning the first mountain stage of the race Victor de la Parte (Vorarlberg) continued his amazing 2015 season by crushing the opposition in the Tour of Austria queen stage. After race leader Jan Hirt (CCC) had managed to follow his first attack, he dropped the Czech before riding to the victory with an advantage of 1.17 over Ben Hermans (BMC) and taking the overall lead.

At a time when the opportunities in Spain are limited, some of the riders have to chase success in foreign teams. One of the riders to follow a different path is 29-year-old Victor de la Parte who spent one year at Caja Rural before he spent years in Greece and Portugal.

Last year he won the prologuein the Volta a Portugal and that helped him secure a contract with the Austrian Vorarlberg team for the 2015 season. Here he has enjoyed a breakthrough season, most notably with an overall victory in the hard Fleche du Sud stage race.

Riding for an Austrian team, his biggest goal of the year is the Tour of Austria and after he finished third overall and won a stage in the Oberösterreich Rundfahrt, he was mentioned as a possible outsider for the race. However, few would have imagined him to beat all the pro riders but that’s what he did in the first mountain stage two days ago when he beat Jan Hirt in a two-rider sprint.

Today de la Parte had the big chance to confirm that he was not a one-hit wonder when he tackled the queen stage with the finish at the top of the famous Kitzbüheler Horn which is one of the hardest climbs in Europe. Again he turned out to be the strongest and this time he was simply in a class of his own.

After Sylwester Szmyd had whittled the front group down to just 6 riders to set race leader Jan Hirt up for the win, the Spaniard was the first to attack and Hirt was the only who managed to follow. However, he was quickly distanced and from there it was a mountain time trial for de la Parte.

Hirt was caught by Ben Hermans and those two riders tried to bring de la Parte back. However, they constantly lost time and instead they started an internal battle. Inside the final kilometre, Hermans attacked and he reached the finish in second, 1.17 behind the dominant de la Parte. Hirt was third, 11 seconds further adrift.

“I have been preparing for this race for three months in Ponferrada on 2.000 meters above sea level. It is good to see that it paid off. Everything went perfect, but our team has two hard days ahead now”, rejoiced De la Parte in the finish area, where he was received by his girlfriend.

"That was a sensational performance by Victor. To have the yellow jersey in our home race is not only an honour, it also makes us humble," sports director Werner Salmen said. 

"Now we have two hard stages. It is difficult to win a stage. It is even more difficult to defend a yellow jersey. However, the guys are motivated and very confident. We will all try to make the impossible possible. We have to see but we have alreadyachieved much more than we expected. Everything else is a bonus."