Forst (Germany) - 17.8.96 1. Carsten PODLESCH (Germany) 2. ROSSI (Switzerland) 3. Roland KOENIGSHOFER (Austria) This has been Roland Koenigshofer's 12th medal in the last 12 years (3 x WC Gold)
The 50th International Peace Race, in former times the most important stage race of Eastern Europe, will start on the 8th of May in Potsdam near Berlin with a 70 km circuit race as Prolog. After the Prolog, three stages of the 1600 km long jubilee race will take place in Germany. A contract about the 50th race was now signed by Tour-Director Pavel Dolezel (Czechia) and Gustav-Adolf Taeve Schur Magdeburg/Germany), who is the President of the Club International Peace Race. Schur has been the cycling hero of East Germany in the 1950s.
In Germany the peloton, in which beside ten amateur national-teams ten professional teams are allowed to take part, cycles on its first stage from Potsdam to Magdeburg. The start of the second stage will be in Werningerode (near the Harz mountains), it ends in Freyburg/Unstrut. In both places, new sponsors of the peace race are located.
The third stage leads to Dresden and includes the legendary wall of Meerane, a short but steep hill of 12 - 15 percent. The fourth stage starts in Bautzen and leads over the border to Poland where it ends in Karpacz.
There will be three more stages in Poland and five stages in Czechia before the peace tour finishes on the 18th of May.
Team Telekom has already promised to take part in the 1997 peace tour. In 1996, the peace tour had been UCI-Cat. 2.5.