After a 15-year break, the Altstadtcriterium in Graz celebrated a comeback on Tuesday evening. On a 980 meter long circuit, the cycling aces delivered an intense head-to-head race. After a total of sixty laps, Geraint Thomas (Ineos Grenadiers) won ahead of Jan Tratnik (Bahrain Merida) and Marco Haller (Bora hansgrohe). Rainer Kepplinger finished eighth as the best professional of the Steyr Hrinkow Advarics Cycleang Team.
Thousands of spectators along the circuit had cheered on the drivers at the comeback of the Graz inner city criterion. The top star and later also the celebrated winner was the Welshman Geraint Thomas, who celebrated third place in the Tour de France on Sunday. The Hrinkow team was very strong with Marvin Hammerschmid, Manuel Bosch, Daniel Eichinger and Rainer Kepplinger. The quartet covered all the top groups and was sometimes the most active team of the day. In the end, Kepplinger was three seconds behind top star Thomas. Manuel Bosch was twelfth, Hammerschmid was 16th and Eichinger was 27th.
After this top performance by the Hrinkow drivers, the anticipation of the premiere of the home criterion in two and a half weeks is already growing. For the first time in the 24-year history of this spectacular traditional event, road professionals and not mountain bikers will whiz through the old town on a new course at the Steyrer Hrinkow City Criterion on August 14th. In this pavement spectacle with start and finish at Steyr’s town square, fifty laps of one kilometer each have to be completed.
Source: Nachrichten
