A breakthrough edition of the Czech Tour—when the country’s biggest stage race quite literally crossed the entire Czech Republic—also turned out to be the most dramatic in its history. The overall was decided in the final metres of Sunday’s last stage, finishing on Pustevny, where huge crowds created a fantastic atmosphere for the riders. Exactly the script race director Leopold König had hoped for from the start…
The finale of this year’s Czech Tour delivered moments we’ll be talking about for a long time. Do you agree?
An absolutely dramatic race—possibly the most dramatic edition in the event’s history. A break went clear in the last stage, but the peloton kept the gap under control and the finish on Pustevny was truly spectacular. We saw an attack from Cian Uijtdebroeks, who at one point had the virtual yellow jersey, but what Junior Lecerf produced afterwards… Drama right down to the last metres.
WorldTour riders shone again, but the Continental teams also made headlines…
We had two surprise winners—Liam Walsh from the Australian team Ccache x Bodywrap won the sprint in Ostrava, and Jannis Peter from Team Vorarlberg dominated on Pustevny. Both said it was a career milestone and a hugely valuable victory that opens new doors for them.
For the first time the Czech Tour ventured beyond its traditional heartlands and really spanned the whole country. Where did the race move forward this year?
For the first time it felt like a true Czech Tour. We covered the entire republic and gave fans a show from Karlovy Vary to Ostrava. Organisationally it’s anything but easy, but we managed it. And thanks to live coverage on Eurosport we were visible around the world, which matters.
You were getting feedback from riders and sports directors during the whole week. What did they say?
They’re excited. They told us we’re matching the level of the best races in the world. The top teams come back year after year, and after the race we get positive feedback from them… We value that enormously and it pushes us forward—we want to keep improving.
That ambition is also reflected in your application to move the race up a category…
We hope to step up to the UCI ProSeries. That should open the door a bit wider to the very best teams and help us attract more and more of their stars.
Foto: Jan Brychta, Markéta Navrátilová, Lukáš Wagneter
