Aqua Blue Sport on the cusp at Tour of Austria
Aqua Blue Sport is on the cusp of an incredible achievement at the Tour of Austria; winning a UCI stage race in its first season against WorldTour teams.
On today’s penultimate stage of the race, Stefan Denifl retained the yellow jersey he took yesterday.
And with just tomorrow’s mammoth final stage, 204km from St Johann-Alpenbdorf to Wels, to negotiate the team is looking good.
Aqua Blue Sport was understandably delighted to take its first ever victory last month when Larry Warbasse won a mountain stage at the Tour de Suisse.
But if Denifl can hold on – not a foregone conclusion by any means – to win this race outright the team would be on a high for quite some time.
The Tour de France may be on at present, and mopping up the biggest names in the sport, but the field in Austria is littered with quality.
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There are four WorldTour outfits in the race; Astana, Cannondale-Drapac, Dimension Data and Katusha-Alpecin.
And Denifl took yellow the hard way; riding away from everyone, but one man, in the race yesterday.
Denifl was distanced by Colombian and GC threat Lopez (Astana) on the HC climb today. But he got him back with around 20km remaining to the finish and kept his race lead.
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On the feared summit finish of Kitzbüheler Horn, only Angel Miguel Lopez (Astana) proved stronger than the Aqua Blue Sport Austrian.
And Denifl’s 2nd place was enough to give him the yellow jersey. The field split to pieces again today on the 212.5km stage 5 from Kitzbühel to St Johann-Alpenbdorf.
Denifl would managed 10th place in a small group 2:02 down; the stage won by Ben O’Connor (Dimension Data).
This morning Denifl led by 41 seconds from Delio Fernandez (Delko Marseille Provence KTM), with Lopez 3rd at 56 seconds.
Fernandez finished two place ahead of Denifl today but his time gain was minimal; just four seconds.
And Lopez would lose three seconds to the race leader on a day with a hors cat and cat 2 climb in the final third of the stage.
Aqua Blue Sport fights off Astana
However, Lopez pulled ahead of Denifl for a long period today, shaking him on the 18km Grossglockner hors cat climb
As a result, Lopez was yellow jersey on the road for some of that time. Denifl never let the gap go over 1:30 and did Trojan work to catch the flying Colombian.
There is more climbing tomorrow; cat 3 ascents at 27.5km and 55.9 km and a cat 1 at 114km. But the remaining near-90km is flat.
Most noteworthy, Aqua Blue Sport is unfortunately down to just five riders after it lost Matt Brammeier and Mark Christian today when they did not finish.
Consequently, Denifl will be hoping Daniel Pearson, Calvin Watson, Peter Koning and Andrew Fenn can help him seal it tomorrow.
It would be an incredible win for a ProContinental team in its first year, but the riders must be on their toes tomorrow.
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