Tour of Austria, stage 2 – Jonathan Fumeaux: «Not an easy stage»

The Kitzbüheler Horn deserves respect.

IAM Cycling riders can speak knowingly of its challenges now at the end of the 2^nd stage of the Tour of Austria, which witnessed a repeat victory by Kevin Seeldrayers (Astana).

The Belgian rider only left the crumbs to his two teammates who arrived just behind him, and then the rest to the other teams.  With Astana refusing to take the responsibility of controlling the race and the three escapees who had upwards of 9 minutes in advance, the IAM Cycling team arrived at the foot of the final 7.6 kilometer climb that featured an average gradient of 12.3% and ramps as steep as 22.7% with a depleted crew.

Jonathan Fumeaux confirmed that he lacked some snap in his legs to the surprise of his directeur sportif Marcello Albasini:

“It was not an easy stage and all the best riders were ahead of me.  I was not bad, but I was not good either.  It will be difficult to figure now in the general classification.  But there are still many stages to show myself and my talents.” 

Stefan Denifl, who already finished as IAM Cycling’s best rider in stage 1, took that honor for stage 2 as well when he was able to finish in 14^th place 1’44” behind the day’s winner.

“I must admit that this is not my favorite type of climb.  But I tried to give everything I had with the goal of finishing in the top-10 still very much within reach.  Since I am currently 10^th overall, I’ll have to roll up my sleeves and dig deep between now and Sunday.”