The 19-year-old Australian Cameron Rogers (Lidl-Trek Future) was sitting on the hot seat during the prologue at the 2.1 ranked Tour of Austria expecting to cede the top position as the two-time world champion in the race against the clock and five-time Italian champion Filippo Ganna (Ineos Grenadiers) thundered toward the line.
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 in the centre of St. Pölten, the capital of Lower Austria.
“I’m still shaking now, my heartbeat is still going as quick as it was in the race," said the young Australian in the post-prologue interview.
"Watching him I thought he got me at the last second but I beat him, I don’t know how ... I do not know how,” he repeated with a shake of the head and a beaming grin.
Rogers delivered a time of 3:38 to take the breakthrough victory ahead of Ganna, with Czech rider Tomas Kopecky (TDT-Unibet) third at 1.5 seconds back. Fourth-placed Max Walscheid (Jayco-AlUla) was also within two seconds of the winning time in the tight race for the podium spots on the flat fast-paced opener of six days of racing from July 2-7.
Rogers made a powerful mark in Australia as a junior, winning the U19 road title in January 2022 and in April of the same year, the then 17-year-old also set a junior national record on the track in the 3,000m individual pursuit at the Oceania Championships in Brisbane. The rider from Canberra raced with the Lotto Dstny Development team in 2023 before launching into the 2024 season with Lidl-Trek Future, where he is one of the youngest riders on that Continental team.
After his first professional win in the Tour of Austria prologue, Rogers will now line up among the field packed with WorldTour riders in the race leader's jersey for the 177.9km stage 1 on Wednesday.
"It was a massive shock when Ganna came in a second behind me. I didn't expect that," said Rogers in a media statement. "That was definitely the best race of my life and I can hardly believe that I'll be riding in the leader's jersey tomorrow."
