Vienna's track cycling aces

Positive European Championship results after a “brutal cold start”

Tim Wafler (center) can look back with satisfaction.

(Bild: Drew Kaplan)

Last year, track cycling ace Tim Wafler sensationally won European Championship silver in the scratch race. This year, he was unable to achieve the same feat. Nevertheless, he and teammate Max Schmidbauer can look back with satisfaction after the title fights in Zolder, Belgium.

"After the Olympic Games in Paris, I didn't get on my bike for three months due to a bacterial infection," explains track cycling ace Max Schmidbauer. Together with Tim Wafler, the Viennese duo finished ninth in the Madison competition on the final day of the European Track Cycling Championships in Zolder, Belgium. "After the competition break, the race felt like a brutal cold start for me."

For Max Schmidbauer, it was his first major competition since the Olympic Games in Paris

(Bild: © Arne Mill)

"All in all, we can be satisfied with the result in the end," says Ströck athlete Wafler. "We collected very valuable points for the World Championship qualification."

Wafler himself had previously finished fifth in the elimination race. In his favorite discipline, scratch, in which he won silver last year, he finished eighth this time: "In terms of results, we could have done better, but unfortunately you can't pre-program a European Championship medal in the elite."

In mid-March, the Nations Cup in Turkey will once again provide important points for the World Championship qualifiers.