Austria's bike stars in the limelight: Großsschartner shines at Tour de Suisse!

Austria's bike stars in the limelight: Großsschartner shines at Tour de Suisse!

The Tour de Suisse began on Sunday with an impressive start, in which two Austrian drivers were placed in the top ten of the overall ranking. Krone reports that Felix Großschaftner won sixth place after 129.4 km around Küssnacht, while Rainer Kepplinger finished ninth. Both cyclists were part of a tough 28-piece escape group that dominated the racing for a long time and ultimately had 1:07 minutes behind the day winner Romain Gregoire.

Romain Gregoire prevailed after the last climb in the rain, followed by Kevin Vauquelin, Bart Lemmen and Julian Alaphilippe, who crossed him behind him for 20 seconds. Almost at the same time as Großschartner, Ben O’Connor also crossed the finish line. Felix Gall, one of the main players for the overall classification, lost 3:12 minutes and took an unfortunate position in this stage.

Felix Großschartner: A mountain specialist with impressive success

Felix Großschaftner, born in Wels, Austria in 1993, is considered a mountain specialist and has already driven four professional teams in his career. Since 2023 he has been under contract with UAE Team Emirates , where he supports the Tadej Pogačar team. His greatest successes include the stage victory at the Tour of the Alps 2021 and the overall victory at the Turkey tour in 2019. In addition, in 2020 and 2021 he took the ninth and tenth place at Vuelta a España.

Großschaftner, who switched to Team Felbermayr Gourmetfein-Wels in 2012, also has significant achievements at Grand Tours, such as the Giro d’Italia. In 2018 he reached third place at a mountain stage of the Giro and became an Austrian state champion in the street race in 2022.

challenges in cycling

However, the performance of professional athletes is often in the shade of the doping problem. Enlightenment and controls have increased in recent years, as Radsport Rennrad . A biological passport in professional cycling has been mandatory since 2008 to effectively recognize manipulation. The introduction of new test agencies, such as the International Testing Agency (ITA) and the "No Needle Policy" in 2011, should contain doping abuse.

UCI President David Lappartant emphasizes that the credibility of sport can be lost quickly, and the increasing performance values ​​of the top professionals in big races ensure continuing discussions about fairness and ethics in sport. While cycling positions itself combative against doping, the pressure to provide top performance remains enormously and leads to a constant debate about the limits of what was allowed.