The 19-year-old Australian Cameron Rogers (Lidl-Trek Future) was sitting on the new seat in the course of the prologue on the 2.1 ranked Tour of Austria anticipating to cede the highest place because the two-time world champion within the race towards the clock and five-time Italian champion Filippo Ganna (Ineos Grenadiers) thundered towards the road.
However, when the clock stopped Rogers had triumphed by one second. The nephew of retired three-time world time trial champion Michael Rogers had taken his first win in an elite UCI ranked race on the 3km course within the heart of St. Pölten, the capital of Lower Austria.
“I’m nonetheless shaking now, my coronary heart beat remains to be going as fast because it was within the race,” mentioned the younger Australian within the post-prologue interview.
“Watching him I believed he bought me on the final second however I beat him, I don’t understand how … I have no idea how,” he repeated with a shake of the top and a beaming grin.
Rogers delivered a time of three:38 to take the breakthrough victory forward of Ganna, with Czech rider Tomas Kopecky (TDT-Unibet) third at 1.5 seconds again. Fourth- positioned Max Walscheid (Jayco-AlUla) was additionally inside two seconds of the successful time within the tight race for the rostrum spots on the flat fast-paced opener of six days of racing from July 2-7.
Rogers made a robust mark in Australia as a junior, successful the U19 street title in January 2022 and in April of the identical yr the then 17 yr outdated additionally set a junior nationwide file on the monitor within the 3,000m particular person pursuit on the Oceania Championships in Brisbane. The rider from Canberra raced with the Lotto Dstny Development workforce in 2023 earlier than launching into the 2024 season with Lidl-Trek Future, the place he is without doubt one of the youngest riders on that Continental workforce.
After his first skilled win within the Tour of Austria prologue, Rogers will now line up among the many area filled with WorldTour riders within the race chief’s jersey for the 177.9km stage 1 on Wednesday.
“It was an enormous shock when Ganna got here in a second behind me. I did not count on that,” mentioned Rogers in a media assertion. “That was undoubtedly one of the best race of my life and I can hardly imagine that I’ll be using within the chief’s jersey tomorrow.”
