Tour of Austria – Rough day for IAM Cycling

Coming the day before the longest stage of the Tour of Austria which will cover 228.3 kilometers on Thursday, the queen stage into Alpendorf was claimed by Matthias Frank (BMC).

His solo victory included being the first over the Grossglockner climb topping out at 2504 meters, netting him a 2500 € bonus.  Kevin Seeldrayers still holds his overall lead and will start stage 5 in the yellow jersey.

The day ended badly for IAM Cycling in spite of the good work that Jonathan Fumeaux and Gustav Larsson did for Stefan Denifl; the Austrian rode well but lost one place on the general classification and sits now in 11^th place overall.  The worst news came when the commissioners disqualified Matthias Brändle for allegedly receiving an illegal tow over the Grossglockner from his directeur sportif, Eddy Seigneur.

Seigneur, who has now also been excluded from the race, defended himself and his rider against having done anything wrong, though his efforts were in vain.

“I never helped Matthias.  I am even more disgusted that the decision was made solely on the basis of a time check taken from his transponder.  The commissioners have not seen anything with their own eyes, but rather believe that Matthias Brändle could not have made up 1’30” riding on his own in order to catch a group that included Popovych.  Rather Matthias had 2 minutes on the pack at the base of the Grossglockner.  He lost the time on the climb to meet up with Popovych and the others at the top.  I, on the other hand, stayed at the top to get behind the gruppetto.  This is a profound injustice.”