On a warm sunny spring day in Austria over 2000 amateur cyclists lined up to race at the Neusiedler Radmarathon, a UCI Gran Fondo World Championship qualifying event, with riders representing 38 countries, including race winner Adam Fultan’s Slovinia.

On a very fast and flat 125 kilometers long route around Lake Neusiedler, with little wind to break the huge field apart, crashes were aplenty from the start as riders fought for position, including UCI Gran Fondo World Champion Johnny Hoogerland and Juraj Sagan’s RRK Group Pierre Baguette team.

Eventually an elite front group pulled away with one of Sagan’s star riders, 23 year-old Adam Fultan, safely tucked in. Almost three hours later as they crossed under the 1km to go banner, Fultan launched a blistering attack to not only earn the win, but to also set a new course record of 2:51:23. The Swiss Matthias Studder and Belgian Gianni Quintelier, both 2:51:25, sprinted for second and third place in that order.

CycloWorld.cc reports that after the race a dejected Johnny “Crash” Hoogerland commented, “Everyone here is riding on their limit, many participants have poor handling skills. This is the result.” Despite crashing early, Hoogerland managed to finish 37th, but over six minutes back.

Slovenian Daniela Traxl-Pintarelli, 40, won the women’s race with a final time of 3:14:22. Majda Horvat (3:15:41) was second and Mira Fischer (3:17:16) third.

At Friday’s UCI world championship qualifying time trial, with just under 200 participants, Daniel Szalay stopped the clock at 35:56.19 with an average speed of 43.41kph to earn victory. Austrian Anna Kofler was the fastest women at 39:45.60.

Riders finishing in the top 25% of their age/gender category in the time trial or radmarathon automatically qualify to attend the 2023 UCI Gran Fondo World Championships taking place in Scotland next August.

Complete Neusiedler Radmarathon results HERE.

Complete Neusiedler time trial results HERE.

Photo Credit: Facebook/Neusiedler Radmarathon

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