Simone Sterbini continued the great Tour of Austria for Bardiani by claming an impressive maiden professional victory in the second big mountain stage of the race. With a fantastic solo ride, he was the lone survivor of an early 8-rider breakaway and reached the finish with an advantage of 2.02 over David Belda (Roth) who gained a few seconds on the rest of the GC riders. Jan Hirt (CCC) responded to the many attacks and retained his advantage of 1.17 over Guillaume Martin (Wanty).

We have gathered a few reactions.

Simone Sterbini: Now I know that I have a future in professional cycling

Bardiani-CSF has left another mark on the Tour of Austria thanks to an amazing solo win of Simone Sterbini. The young talent, born in 1993 in Rome’s province, has taken his first win as professional in stage five.

The win came after a long breakaway with seven other riders. At the bottom of the final climb, Sterbini decided to make a solo attack, riding more than 14 km alone.

“This is the biggest joy of my career so far. Right now I’m struggling to understand how it happened,” said Sterbini, who won the Under 23 Italian Championships in 2014. “At the moment we started the final climb I knew we had a good gap on the peloton but not enough to feel secure. The other escapees were playing for time and I just thought about attacking. I didn’t know if it was the right one, but it was the only chance I had.

”I was just riding and never thought about the stage win, until 3km before the finish line. I had a time advantage of about 2mins and then I suddenly realized that I could really bring home this victory.

“I feel excited for how this win came and for the support of the team. Riding a 14km climb alone was hard, but team directors Zanatta and Cucinotta never left me alone. They kept me updated on times and gave me a boost of confidence. I know I was alone crossing the line, but this is a team win”

“In my first season, 2015, I understood what it is to be a professional rider. I started 2016 aiming for results, but so far it was hard for me. Thanks to this win, I feel I broke through some blocks. I understand I can aim for a future in professional cycling. My goal is now to grow again, to work hard and look for new satisfactions”.

For Bardiani-CSF, who celebrated the victory of Nicola Ruffoni in stage one only afew days ago, today’s success is the fifth in 2016 and obtained with the fifth different rider.

Another excellent day for Roth at the Tour of Austria

For Roth, Spanish rider David Belda had good legs again and got an amazing 2nd place. He is now 9th in the general classification, 3'50" difference behind the leader Jan Hirt (CCC).

Another highlight of the day was the presence of Austrian rider Matthias Krizek in the breakaway. Yesterday he was already part of the group in order to defend Andrea Pasqualon's green jersey and could score 15 points in the sprint classification. Today he won 3 out of 3 sprints and took the lead of the classification with 27 points.

"Before the start, it wasn't planned that I should join the group. But it was worth it and we could keep the green jersey in the team" explained Krizek after the stage. "Tomorrow we will probably help Pasqualon for the sprint.

“I had heavy legs from yesterday where I was in the lead for 140km, today for 120km. But it was well worth it.”

Jan Hirt safely through most difficult jersey defence

The general classification remained the same. Jan Hirt still leads ahead of Guillaume Martin and Vorarlberg pro Patrick Schelling.

"It was a controlled day today. But I came a big step closer to the overall victory. We knew that today is an important day on the way to Vienna.“

Young Austrian impresses at in home mountains

Amplatz BMC Professional Hermann Pernsteiner is best Austrian and continued to be in sixth position.

"We have survived the day and on the Dobratsch climb I have repeatedly set the pace in the chasing group. I wanted to push the pace, so no one attacked,” Manner jersey wearer Pernstein said.

Stölting frustrated to have missed break in Austrian mountains

For the second day straight at the Tour of Austria the climbers had their time in the limelight with another tough mountain-top finish to stage 5. After losing minutes on yesterday’s final climb, and dropping out of the top 20 overall, Christian Mager was back in his rhythm on today’s ascent, taking 17th for Stölting.

Mager held strong for a long time on the final climb to Dobratsch after over 150km of racing, only losing touch with the leaders in the final stages before setting his own tempo and losing just 57″ to the first rider from the main group.

All of the other six Team Stölting Service Group riders finished safely in the grupetto, except Rasmus Guldhammer who was the last rider with Christian on the approach to the finish, eventually finishing 26th at just over eight minutes down on the stage winner.

“Because Chris was over nine minutes down going into the stage we wanted to try and get him into the break today to try for the stage win this way,” explained Sports Director Gregor Willwohl after the stage.

“But this didn’t work out and so we switched all of our attention towards the final climb and setting him up in the best way possible. By the top he finished 17th which was a strong result with some good climbers at this race.”

Valerio Agnoli back in action in Austria after Giro crash

"Three weeks ago I started again to ride a bike again,” said Valerio Agnoli, who returned to racing after crashing in the Giro d’Italia, “and the long break of 120km gives me confidence for the next races such as the Tour de Pologne which starts next week.

"The wrist hurts sometimes but the recovery process is going according to plan."

"In addition Valerio's good race today's stage has highlighted Artyom Zakharov's good form while Kozhatayev has not recovered well from yesterday's effort,” commented Astana sports director Gorazd Stangelj.

Unfortunately Alessandro Vanotti lost the mountains jersey.