Tour of Austria (st. 4)

Colombian from Movistar Team combative into first mountain-top finish in Austria, jumps into overall podium positions.

The Movistar Team showed its group’s strength on the climbs at the first big stage in the 2019 Tour of Austria, finishing atop the Fuscher Törl after 13km of grueling climbs at 10% average.

Betancur, Fernández and Valls took on team duties to cover, up to the foot of the ascent, ther team-mates Winner Anacona and Eduardo Sepúlveda, the most active into a GC group which saw two strong accelerations from the Colombian early on. Joined near the top by Ben O’Connor (TDD) and eventual stage winner Ben Hermans (ICA), who left him behind at the last 1.5km, Winner took 3rd -9″ behind the Belgian- as Balito finished in 4th, 23″ after the day’s victor.

The overall classification looks identical to the stage result, with Anacona in third (+13″) followed by Sepúlveda in fourth (+34″). There’s still two stages remaining in Austria, with a chance for breakaways and sprinters on Thursday followed by Friday’s brutal showdown on the slopes of the Kitzbüheler Horn (7.3km, 12.3% avg.).

Pictures (c): Nadine Pfeffer