Decathlon's Mühlberger wins solo on home roads and pulls on the first Tour of Austria leader's jersey

Gregor Mühlberger won the opening stage of the Tour of Austria on Wednesday. In the shadow of the Tour de France, the Austrian rider from Decathlon CMA CGM was riding in the Austrian national team colours. A superb sprint in the final stretch was enough to secure the first leader’s jersey on the stage race.

While all eyes are mainly on the Tour de France, the Tour of Austria kicked off on Wednesday. Six WorldTour teams were present at the 2.1-category race: UAE Team Emirates-XRG, Netcompany INEOS, Lidl-Trek, Jayco AlUla, EF Education-EasyPost, and Alpecin-Premier Tech.

Among the participants were Carlos Rodriguez (INEOS), Bauke Mollema (Lidl-Trek), Koen Bouwman (Jayco AlUla), Tibor Del Grosso (Alpecin-Premier Tech), Jan Christen (UAE Team Emirates-XRG), and the returning Neilson Powless of EF. They set off on Wednesday for a relatively easy opening stage, though it did feature a steep climb in the final stretch.

Early in the race, a group of four broke away, but—with all due respect, of course—it didn’t include any big names. Two riders tried to catch up to them, but without success. The peloton decided that was enough and let the leading quartet pull ahead to a maximum lead of seven minutes.

That gap gradually closed, and the last breakaway riders were caught in the final local lap. Once the peloton was back together, it was Powless who accelerated. This meant that we actually saw all the big names in the running for the overall victory at the front. As a result, this stage still ended up having a very exciting finish.

In that breakaway, Gregor Mühlberger, who was riding on behalf of the Austrian national team, picked up the pace. He built up a small lead with less than 10 kilometers to go. However, riders like Kevin Vermaerke (UAE) and Paul Double (Jayco) were not far behind. The chasing duo was joined by more pursuers, including Mollema.

However, the breakaway seemed to have fallen apart, and Mühlberger rode away on his own, gradually pulling further ahead. As a result, the Decathlon-Austrian rider secured the victory and, with it, the first leader’s jersey on his home circuit. Vermaerke finished second, while the Lidl-Trek trio of Hector Alvarez, Mollema, and Andrea Bagioli finished third, fourth, and fifth, respectively.