Team Katusha’s rider Angel Vicioso was close to his second podium place in the Tour of Austria stage race. Today he  was 4th in the stage 5, just missing a place in the top 3. The winner of the stage was  Johann Van Zyl from MTN-Qhubeka who made a solo attack from a late breakaway.

Second and third places were decided in the bunch sprint 6 seconds later: David Tanner from IAM Cycling was 2nd, Rick Zabel from BMC finished 3rd just in front of Angel Vicioso.

“I have always been a fast guy, especially when it was a small uphill sprint. Here I tried. Finishing 2nd two days ago and 4th today is very good for my motivation. It means that I was very close to a victory. More races are coming for me like Clasica San Sebastian, Vuelta a Burgos and La Vuelta. After a bad period I am looking to always perform well but believe me: in the Tour of Belgium and the Dauphiné I suffered a lot. But it helped me to create a strong base for my form, which I have now,” said Angel Vicioso.

“Today it was a stage for sprinters so we decided to support Angel Vicioso who did a strong sprint two days ago in stage 3. The peloton controlled the late breakaway of 3 riders well; we never gave them more than 2 minutes. But with more or less 30 km there was a massive crash in the bunch, so later the organizers decided to neutralize and to briefly stop the race. After the restart we tried to catch the break, but missed a few seconds. Angel was 3rd in the bunch sprint, taking fourth in the stage. Now we are looking forward to the queen stage tomorrow with Kitzbüheler Horn at the finish,” said team’s director Gennady Mikhaylov.

The fifth stage of the Tour of Austria started in Faaker See/Drobollach and ended in Matrei in Osttirol after 175 km of racing. The peloton was really fast in the first part of the race, thus the first break was only able to go away after 80 km. This escape was able to stay in front of the race for 45 km, before being neutralized by the peloton. With 40km to go another break of 3 riders, including future stage winner Johann Van Zyl, attacked to quickly get 2 minutes advantage.

The peloton tried to control it, but with 30 km to go after a massive crash the organization of the Tour of Austria decided to stop the race for some time. Later when the race was restarted, the peloton caught two of three riders from the break, but Van Zyl managed to save a small gap enough to win the stage.

In the general classification Jan Hirt from CCC Sprandi Polkowice still holds the lead, Egor Silin is 7th overall, 38 seconds behind the leader.

Tomorrow it is the queen stage of the race – 164,7 km from Lienz to Kitzbüheler Horn HC category climb.