Neilson Powless (EF Education-EasyPost) confirmed he was back to form and in good health as he won stage 3 of the Tour of Austria on Friday, holding off Igor Arrieta (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) in a two-up sprint after the pair spent the day in a larger breakaway.
Powless punched the air after crossing the line for the victory, while Arrieta kept his arms on his handlebars, raising his front wheel to pound the pavement in frustration.
It was Powless' first victory in 13 months after his last win in the GP Gippingen in June last year. More significant to the 29-year-old US rider was vanquishing the last four months of non-competition after recovering from knee surgery.
"I feel like I can finally put this nasty chapter behind me with surgery and rehab that was really complicated. I just feel so incredible, and I just wanted to say thank you to my teammates, as well for helping me today," Powless said in a team statement.
“I'm very, very satisfied, very happy. I came here with the ambition of winning a stage, and I knew it was going to be 50/50 if I was good enough after such a long time without racing, but my knee is holding up and I feel really strong."
He started his season at Tour de Provence in February but had to abandon the final stage due to knee pain. That led to surgery and the recovery process before a charge on Friday.
“I told my coach that I just really wanted to win a bike race this year. I didn't care where it was or how it happened, but it just feels really good to already achieve that goal," he added.
"I had two in the breakaway with me, Samuele [Battistella] and Vincenzo [Albanese], and they just did an incredible job helping me save energy. It's always a team effort, so I'm really happy to win."
The original breakaway of 21 riders formed 53km into the 188km stage, after back-to-back category 3 climbs. Powless and Arrieta separated from the main breakaway with 40km remaining to the uphill finish in Alpendorf.
On a category 2 ascent of Buchberg, Arrieta attacked at the front and only Powless followed. The lead pair moved away at the front, but saw the gap fading to 40 seconds as they hit the final climb to the ski town of St. Johann Alpendorf, less than 3km to the finish at an average gradient of 6.5%.
The EF Education rider then led out the duo on the top section of the 2.6km climb and saved enough in the tank for a final acceleration to keep the 23-year-old Spaniard from passing.
"It's really nice to be winning bike races again. I wasn't sure if it was going to happen at all this year. But here I am, the first win, so it feels really nice.”
Arrieta was looking to replicate a similar two-rider raid which landed him the stage 5 victory at this year's Giro d'Italia, that day a slippery affair in the rain against Afonso Eulálio (Bahrain Victorious), as the two survived separate crashes into the Potenza and Arrieta even overcame a wrong turn on course to take the victory in a sprint.
Like Powless, Arrieta had two teammates with him in the early breakaway, Jan Christen and António Morgado. The UAE Team Emirates-XRG rider said after the race that a sprint scenario would have better suited for one of his teammates, but was glad to have the opportunity to go for the win.
"I think I wasn’t the best person to have the finish decided in a two-up sprint. I knew Jan [Christen] was coming from behind, so I tried to save as much as possible, to make Powless do the work. But in the end, I was not able to escape, and he beat me in the sprint. Sometimes, it is like this, he was better than me," Arrieta said in a team press release.
The leader of the Tour of Austria going into the final two days of racing is Gregor Mühlberger (Team Austria) with 1:31 over US rider Kevin Vermaerke (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) and another 10 seconds on third-placed Bauke Mollema (Lidl-Trek). The best-placed EF Education-EasyPost rider on GC is James Shaw, 2:31 back in seventh position.
