Here is my English report of how I experienced my victory at this year's Tortour:
The 2014
Tortour was my third and last race this season, after an unfortunate DNF at the
Race Around Slovenia (RAS) earlier this year, and my third place at the Race
Across The Alps (RATA). At the same time, this 1003 kilometer long race around
Switzerland, including 14.500 meters of climbing, would also be my last
ultra-cycling race before participating at the Race Across America (RAAM) next
year.
I started
my Swiss adventure in the early morning of Wednesday, August 13 - travelling from my home-town Graz all the
way to Schaffhausen, which took more than 10 hours. Luckily, I had booked “Meister's Bed & Breakfast”, led by
cycling enthusiasts Ruth and Theo, and probably one of the most
bicycle-friendly accommodations I have ever been to!
My four-men
crew and I had thereby found the perfect base for our pre- race preparations.
My experienced support team this time consisted of my loyal crew chief Martin
Orthacker (“Sic”), team doctor Christoph Auferbauer (“Chrisi”), 2013 RAAM
Rookie of the Year David Misch (“David”), and last but not least Michael
Grubinger (“Mike”) who was the crew chief of Alex Gepp at RAAM in 2005.
Thursday,
August 14, was the day for technical inspection, riders and crew-meetings, AND
the pre-race prologue: an 800 meter uphill time trial near the picturesque
Rhine Falls, in which the starting time and order was determined – the winner
of the prologue would start the Tortour first, the second placed rider 30
seconds later, and so on. A nice concept – the idea behind it is that the
position on the road would automatically refer to the position in the race as
well.
At first, I
was not convinced whether riding this time trial as fast as possible would
yield some fatigue at the actual race start later on or not. Yet, I decided to
go as hard as I could and my lungs were screaming once I crossed the
finish-line! But it was worth it! I finished third (out of 32 competitors in
the “Solo Men” category), hence my starting time was defined as 02:01:30am on
Friday, August 15, 2014.
Due to the
rather unusual starting time, I only managed about 2.5 hours of sleep the
evening before I commenced my adventure around Switzerland. I left the
IWC-Arena Schaffhausen at 1 minute and 30 seconds past 2am sharp and started to
ride through the peaceful Swiss night, followed by my 4-men support crew (at
Tortour, follow-vehicle mode is only allowed at night time, during the day only
leap-frog support is permitted).
My aim was
to find a good pace according to my speed and the data of my power meter – not
too fast to have enough power towards the end of the race, but not too slow
either to still be in contention for a podium finish later on. Only
concentrating on my own race and ignoring the fact that I was overtaken by a
few, very fast starting competitors, I was soon able to settle into my own
rhythm and I was pleased to reach the third time station in Chur in fifth
position.
The first
night was over, I had ridden 180 kilometers with an average speed of about
35km/h. Still feeling relaxed, I was really looking forward to the mountainous
terrain that would follow; especially the Albula and Flüela Passes, which I had
already conquered at the RATA earlier this year, albeit both from the other
side in reverse direction and at night. I couldn't wait to see the impressive
landscape in daylight for the first time!
On the
first ascent to Lenzerheide, I was able to overtake fourth-placed Mario Kugler
from Switzerland and had a nice fight for the position with him. Eventually, I
was able to leave him behind and enjoyed the breathtaking landscape and
especially the deep canyon right next to the road which I never noticed during
my fast and quite risky descents at RATA – which is probably a good thing that
I didn't know about the canyon back then!
After the
Albula Pass, it started to rain. Due to problems with my wet Garmin-display, I
was having difficulty reading the GPS track and missed the correct junction to
the fifth time station in Zernez. I was alone at that very moment as my crew,
which had had to switch to “leap-frog support” at the break of dawn just before
Chur, had already driven ahead to the time station to prepare the next handover
of nutrition and material. The strict rules at Tortour state that such
handovers are not allowed while moving, both crew and rider have to stop and
stand still during such action. We had therefore decided prior to the race that
we would accomplish these handovers at the time stations, where I needed to
stop anyway to sign and confirm my arrival.
Hence, I
had to phone my team to get the directions to the time station and lost about 5
minutes. Soaking wet and a bit angry, but quite pumped up due to the navigation
incident, I started to climb up the Flüela Pass and soon felt good again.
During the ascent, it stopped raining and I consolidated my fourth place, and
consequently I reached the pass happy and quite dry again, and immediately
started the descent towards Chur.
This
section, however, proved to be quite tricky with respect to navigation again.
The route book stipulated that I had to use a bicycle track which my crew was
not allowed to take and hence had to opt for an alternative route. By myself, I
lost the way several times again, mainly due to some returning rain showers and
the wet Garmin display, and got a bit annoyed.
By the time
we finally reached Chur for the second time (this time serving as the sixth
time station), I had lost my fourth place to Mario Kugler again. To make things
worse, my digestion was starting to play up – I had had problems the day before
the race as well – and I had to take an extended bathroom break which did cost
more valuable time. At that very moment, I was having some doubts whether I was
still enjoying the race...
Nevertheless,
I was trying to find the right rhythm again on the following short climbs.
Luckily, was able to set a good uphill pace again and soon recovered my fourth
position from Mario Kugler. Yet, while I was climbing the Oberalp Pass, my crew
informed me that fellow Austrian rider Hans Eisenbraun was closing in rapidly
from behind and I knew I had to push a bit harder to not let him overtake me.
Leaving
Oberalp behind in beautiful weather, I had some problems finding the way in
Andermatt again, while some heavy rain returned and thick fog suddenly covered
the complete landscape. Really tough conditions, especially because the Furka
Pass – the highest point of the Tortour (2410 metres above sea-level) – was
next. On the way up, I had to stop for another bathroom break in the most
miserable weather conditions imaginable, it even started to snow for the last
300 meters of climbing.
I reached
the Furka Pass at dusk, I was soaking wet and freezing cold, and thus had to
take a longer break in my pace car. The temperature had fallen to 1ºC, it
snowed and rained, it was extremely windy and foggy, and it had become already
pretty dark. In addition, Hans Eisenbraun reached the top shortly before me, so
I was back in fifth position. The current leader and race favorite, Marko Baloh
from Slovenia, was nearly 90 minutes ahead at that point. My motivation to continue
the race had hit a low point at that very moment.
I changed
all my clothes, I put on my down-feather jacket and all my rain gear and
started the dangerous descent. The conditions on the slippery road were
horrible. Several times I thought I was going crash. I could see hardly
anything, and I started to seriously doubt whether a race in such weather
conditions made sense at all. Several riders must have had the same thoughts in
that phase of the race, as shown by the many DNFs (only 13 out of 32 riders eventually
finished the race!)
Although I
tried to hide my negative emotions, my team soon sensed the bad mood that I was
in and started to cheer and motivate me as much as they could. So quitting was
therefore not an option for me, and to my surprise some 20 kilometers down the
route, the road was completely dry and I was riding at 14ºC again! Had it
rained here at all? It was unbelievable how crazy the weather was at the
Tortour this year!
I got rid
of my warm clothes and my team started to play perfect motivating music on the
team radio. My mood totally changed and I started having fun again. On the next
flat section to the time station in Sion, I found some really good speed again
and even overtook a few 2-Person teams. It seemed that the other riders had
even bigger problems during the second night of the race.
I reached
the time station in Aigle in fourth place, about 10km ahead of Hans Eisenbraun
who had paused at Furka much longer than I had, while the distance to the next
riders in front was getting smaller and smaller. Shortly after Montreux, I
finally caught third-placed Italian Omar di Felice on a 400 meter climb and
overtook him. About half a minute later, he counter-attacked and sprinted up
the hill.
Not wanting
to get involved in a fight for a position at that stage of the race, I decided
to continue my own race and to ride as consistently as possible. It wasn't long
until I caught up to Omar at the break of dawn again, this time finding him
drafting only a few meters behind two 4-person teams. Observing him from a safe
distance – the race rules stipulate that there have to be at least 50 meters
between two riders – I started another attempt to overtake Omar. When I passed,
Omar and the two team-riders pushed harder as well, stayed in my slipstream and
didn’t let me get away. I slowed down again, in order not to risk a penalty,
and stayed at a safe distance behind that pack of three.
Slightly
annoyed, I attempted to overtake Omar one more time, and the same incident
happened again: I was about 15km/h faster when I passed him, yet he immediately
sped up and was sucking directly on my back wheel. I tried to remind him of the
rules, that he had to let me overtake until I was 50 meters ahead, before he
could launch a counter-attack himself. He negated this and claimed that 3-5
meters were enough.
I was
surprised that Omar and/or his crew had neither read nor understood the rules,
and I wondered whether they simply ignored them? Acting the way he did, there
would have been no chance for me (or anybody else) to overtake him in a
non-drafting race. Since there were no race officials around to have a look at
this situation and my digestion played up again, I stopped for two more
toilette breaks between Muntelier and Balsthal.
As a
consequence I lost Omar out of sight, but I managed to overtake Markus Amstutz
from Switzerland, who had been riding in a courageous second position for a
long time, and suddenly found myself in third place – a podium finish had been
my goal for the race and there it was again, the chance to finish in the Top 3
at the Tortour!
In
addition, and pretty much at the same moment, I received a phone call from the
crew of Christoph Strasser, who was racing at the Race Around Austria at the
same time (which he ended up winning in an unbelievable time of 87 hours and 24
minutes! Congratulations!). Christoph is a good friend of mine and the short
phone call gave me new motivation to fight. When I reached the time station in
Balsthal, Marko Baloh was only 8km and Omar 1 km ahead, with Markus Amstutz
trailing only 3km behind me – this race was to become a real thriller!
The stretch
between the time stations in Balsthal and Laufenburg was probably the hardest
part of the race. Steep climbs with an incline of more than 20% were a
challenge for any racer after 850km on the bike. Somewhere in these hills, I
caught Omar again and sped up in the following flats. Omar was slipstreaming
again, not keeping nowhere near the requested 50 meters. However, I was totally
focused on catching Marko Baloh, which suddenly seemed possible as he had lost
a lot of his advantage on that mountainous stage.
Somewhere
between Laufenburg and Glattfelden, about 80km before the finish-line, I
finally caught Marko. I was quite surprised to catch him in the flats –
normally the perfect terrain for Marko. He was obviously suffering and was not
in a good shape anymore. With Omar in my back, there where suddenly three
competitors fighting for the victory. We slowed down a bit and I had a quick
chat with Marko, before I took a short stop to get rid of my warm clothes – the
weather had become nice and warm during noon of the second day, too warm to
still be wearing my rain outfit!
I had soon
caught up to Marko and Omar, and I decided to speed up again on a 5% ascent.
Looking back, I realized that Marko couldn’t follow but Omar was still behind
me. Some minutes later, my team informed me, that they had just found out that
Omar had received a 15 minutes penalty earlier in the race, which was confirmed
on the official web page and by the race office as well. Omar and I reached the
last time station in Glattfelden at the same time, Marko was already 10 minutes
behind.
I had 40kms
to go to the inofficial finish-line at the BBC Arena in Schaffhausen, 40kms to
defend a 10 minutes lead over Marko and 15 minutes over Omar. Once again we had
to ride through torrential rain, so I decided that I didn't want to take any
risks at all and kept riding in front for the entire section – why Omar never
attempted to cut back on these 15 minutes that he was still trailing, is
incomprehensible to me.
When we
reached the city of Schaffhausen, surrounded by a motorbike-marshal and a few
4-person teams, Omar suddenly attacked on the last ascent to the inofficial
finish line at BBC-Arena. I knew I didn’t have to fight or follow him anymore
because of his 15 minutes penalty, which he would have to serve at the
BBC-Arena before continuing to the official finish at the IWC Arena.
I reached
that same finish line on Saturday, 16th of August at 2:24pm. I was
just happy to be there, still not totally sure whether I had really won, but
definitely satisfied to have reached my goal, the podium of the “Solo Men”
category at the Tortour Switzerland. Just a few moments later, one of the race
organizers confirmed Omar's penalty one more time and declared me to be the
winner of the Tortour 2014! Extremely happy, but also totally exhausted, I
lifted my bike into the air!
Some
minutes later, two motorbikes accompanied me to the official finish line at the
IWC-Arena where the finisher medals were awarded to the racers. Just seconds
after I had ridden up the stage, one of Omar's crew members was crashing the
ceremony, running onto the stage, shouting at me, wildly gesticulating and
claiming that I was not the real winner.
I got
frightened, felt threatened and had to endure some tense moments until the
organizers finally ushered him from the stage. The rest of Omar's crew was
booing and whistling in the crowd. I could not believe what was happening -
there I stood now, having accomplished the greatest victory of my career, and
yet I had imagined this moment to be very differently, indeed. My happiness
took a massive damper and I needed some time to compose myself again before I
was able to answer the questions on the stage.
The race
organizers decided to disqualify Omar after the race, due to the inappropriate
and truly unacceptable behavior of his crew at my winner's ceremony. This was
a sad ending to an epic race, because Omar is a great cyclist and I have huge
respect for his past achievements. However, with respect to the incidents at my
presentation and the fact that he breached the rules also during the race
(Baloh's crew confirmed that he was drafting all the time behind Marko as
well), I believe the decision is justified. The will to win must NEVER prevail
over fairness!
Looking
back at the race, I’m very pleased with my performance. I stuck to my tactics,
stayed calm when I lost time at the beginning of the race and kept fun cycling
most of the time. Especially the last 16 hours of the race were nearly
perfect, and only with a perfect ride had I a chance to beat Marko. To win the
Tortour just before him is probably my greatest success in ultra cycling!
Marko, it was a great honour to ride against you! Your are a great champion and
sportsman.
Thanks a
lot to my crew: you did an outstanding job once again! I really look forward to
starting at my next race with you, the 2015 Race Across America! :-)
The
official results:
1. Severin Zotter (AUT) 36:18:44
2. Marko Baloh (SLO) 36:57:28
3. Markus Amstutz (SUI) 37:15:09
