Cycling: Sobrero sprint winner in Steyr – Messner kept up again

Martin Messner made it to the finish after almost 200 km from St. Johann to Steyr as the only Austrian with the 20-man lead, in the overall classification he is twelfth before the end on Sunday mountain. With a 42-second lead over Messner, Ecuadorian Jhonatan Narvaez goes into the final as the favorite leader.

On the high-speed stage, Messner also kept up the pace over the Porscheberg just before the finish with an average of more than 47 km/h. “I was never at the limit, I got over it easily. It’s cool that it worked out like this again,” said the 23-year-old from Styria and thanked his WSA teammates for their support. In the sprint for the day’s victory, the lightweight tour debutant was powerless in 19th place.

For the final day in the Mostviertel, Messner promised: “Sonntagberg will burn. There will definitely be a lot of fans there who will push me. I looked at the mountain – really difficult, really steep and really cool.” Messner is hoping to stand up to Narvaez’s Ineos squad and the Jayco trio of Sobrero, David Jesus Pena and Engelhardt. “We’ll try everything that we can annoy them a bit, and in the end it’s all or nothing anyway.”

Former tour winner Riccardo Zoidl was not the fastest over the last climb. At the finish, the veteran was 22 seconds behind in a group with Tobias Bayer. In the overall classification, the Felbermayr professional on Narvaez is 19th and is already 1:04 minutes behind. “I would have imagined it differently. Unfortunately, I didn’t have my legs today, I fell off 500 m from the summit. But it wasn’t a catastrophe, it was just missing a little bit”.

Leader Narvaez had no problems, but was slowed down by a mechanical problem on his way to a possible third stage win. “I couldn’t sprint, but it was a good day,” said the South American, who expects a tough fight on the final day. “I have strong opponents. We’ll see what happens, my advantage of 28 seconds is not very big.”

His closest pursuer, Sobrero, celebrated a successful double with Engelhardt. “Finally it worked. I’m very happy. We didn’t expect the double victory today,” said the 26-year-old, last year’s time trial winner in the last stage of the Giro d’Italia.