“This could have been it” - Gregor Muhlberger reveals career fears before helping Felix Gall to Giro d’Italia podium

Two weeks after the Giro d’Italia, Gregor Muhlberger sat down in the Cycling Magazine podcast studio to look back on a month that reflected several sides of his career.

The Austrian did not only help compatriot Felix Gall to second overall at the Italian Grand Tour. He also delivered a surprise top-15 finish of his own, proving again why he has become one of the most reliable mountain domestiques in the peloton.

Speaking on the podcast, Muhlberger reflected on the work behind Gall’s podium, the setbacks that almost cost him his career, and how much cycling has changed since he first turned professional. There was no hesitation when he was asked what he would remember most from the Giro. “It is definitely Felix’s second place,” Muhlberger said.

The hardest mountain stages, including Stage 19, stayed with him most clearly. He was also proud of the way Decathlon CMA CGM Team came through the race, with the group largely healthy, the plan holding together and the atmosphere strong from start to finish.

Muhlberger was not always cast as an elite domestique. In his younger years with Tirol Cycling Team, Felbermayr - Simplon Wels and later Bora - hansgrohe, he was seen as a rider with his own winning ambitions.

At the Tour de l’Avenir, he once finished second on a stage behind Guillaume Martin and ahead of names such as Sergio Higuita and Dani Martinez.

His later move into a support role came partly through temperament. “I am more the type who accepts that,” he said. “He says: okay, I will give my best, I will try everything.”

Muhlberger admitted that he often told himself he would fight harder for his own victories, but rarely fully committed to that kind of elbows-out approach.

At the Giro, those qualities made him an ideal rider for Gall. He protected his leader in the wind, organised bottles, stayed close in the mountains and helped give Gall reassurance in more technical or nervous moments. “I think a lot of it is mental,” Muhlberger said of his role.

His view of that work is clear. “When you have a leader who can ride onto the Giro podium, that triggers even more in me,” he said. “For me, that simply stands above everything.”

Muhlberger turned professional with Bora - hansgrohe in 2016 and spent five years there before moving to Movistar in 2021. That switch, he admitted, was difficult at first.

The Spanish-speaking environment brought a language barrier, and shortly after the move he suffered a serious case of meningitis. That came at a time when cycling was changing quickly during and after the Covid period, with teams pushing nutrition, training and recovery to new levels.

Muhlberger felt he missed part of that shift because of his health. “That was when I realised: this could have been it,” he said, recalling the period when he seriously doubted his future as a professional.

While other riders were moving into a more exact, controlled era of preparation, Muhlberger was trying to recover and rebuild.

Now 32, Muhlberger looks at the sport with a different perspective. Young riders are entering the WorldTour with a level of professionalism that once arrived much later. Many are weighing every gram of food, tracking every session and living for performance from their teenage years.

Muhlberger sees the benefits, but also the risks. He always needed a degree of looseness to survive mentally, and wonders how the new generation will cope with their first major setbacks after building their lives around performance so early. For him, the support around a rider will be crucial.

At the Giro, Muhlberger showed again where his own place in the modern peloton now lies. Once a young climber with personal ambitions, he has become a rider who can bury himself for a bigger goal and find genuine satisfaction in the work.

Gall’s podium was the result he will remember. Muhlberger’s own race, finishing inside the top 15 while helping deliver that second place overall, showed why his value to a Grand Tour team is now so clear.