Schmidbauer and Wafler

“Cycling royalty” nominate Viennese duo for the Olympics

"Prince" and King have decided before the President has even given his sanctus. What sounds like the beginning of a gossip column is nothing less than the procedure for nominating the domestic track cycling athletes for the Olympic Games in Paris. Max Schmidbauer and Tim Wafler were nominated to the ÖOC.

National coach Andreas Graf, affectionately known as "Prince" and still an athlete himself in Tokyo in 2021, proposed the two Viennese athletes Maximilian Schmidbauer and Tim Wafler to the sports committee led by Secretary General Florian König. President Harald J. Mayer has now also approved the proposal, which is expected to be confirmed by the Austrian Olympic Committee on July 9.

"The fact that Andreas was present in Tokyo as an active athlete was certainly good for the process. He knows the situation as an athlete and knows what is important," explains General Secretary König. The two 22-year-olds Wafler and Schmidbauer will therefore represent Austria in the Omnium and Madison on August 8 and 10 at the Velodrome National in Saint-Quentin-en-Yveslines. Raphael Kokas and Felix Ritzinger will have to watch. "They've all been to the Dusika Stadium a lot since they were little," says König.