Tour d‘Autriche (Tour of Austria)

Cycling experienced a major boom starting in 1945: people cycled on flat terrain, on the mountain, on roads and cross country, on the cycling track at the Prater (amusement park) and on the cinder tracks of football stadiums. In 1947, a stage race led from Bregenz to Vienna, and in 1948 there was a race through Austria with a start and finish in Vienna. In 1949, a Tour of Austria was held that, for the first time, earned its name. Hundreds of thousands of onlookers lined the streets, the newspapers filled whole pages with the Tour, all radio stations  transmitted live reports. Expectations were high, the hope for an Austrian victory big: it rested mainly on Richard Menapace, who had been born in South Tyrol. With three spectacular solo rides, he became a national hero within a week, winning the race with an almost 40-minute lead and was soon voted athlete of the year. In a country that was still divided up into border zones, all of Austria could follow the exploits of the racing cyclists, at least with a finger on the map, to understand the scale of the “new” homeland.  And the crossing of the Grossglockner represented a symbolic reclamation of the country.