Lenzerheide, Switzerland, July 10th 2022. It was obvious from the second the gun went off, N1NO wanted to win this race so badly. To win the record #34 World Cup on home soil in front of his family, friends and fans would have been the ultimate dream. He did everything just perfectly to conquer his goal, until two minutes before the finish line where he crashed with Swiss rider Matthias Flückiger. With the crash losing Nino and Matthias the 1st and 2nd position, the two Swiss Nationals ended in 3rd and 4th place, leaving the victory to Luca Braidot.
The Bike Kingdom Games have a special place in the SCOTT-SRAM team calendar. In particular Kate Courtney and Nino Schurter both have the very best memories of winning their World Championship titles here in Lenzerheide. Hopes were high that this year could have also become another highlight in N1NO’s career.
Beautiful weather, an amazing atmosphere with a record turnout of 19,000 tickets sold and a spectacular race track were the ingredients for a successful race. The athletes had all they needed to deliver top performances at this thrilling event.
Even N1NO set a fierce pace right from the start and the lead group, with Colombo, Hatherly, Flückiger, Valero Serrano and Braidot, was fairly big. The fast track didn’t allow the group to separate very easily. This resulted in a tactical race where all the stakeholders in the lead group had their strong moments trying to get away. After doing most of the work during the first third of the race, N1NO then concentrated on controlling the action as he focused on the finale.
It came down to a super exciting last lap where Italian Luca Bradoit, South African Alan Hatherly and the two Swiss riders Flückiger and Schurter changed positions every few minutes. In the last single trail section called the “Zauberwald” (Magic Forest), Schurter and Flückiger went in first with the small gap they had gained over Braidot and Hatherly.
But the order coming out of the Zauberwald was reversed. With Braidot in first having Hatherly on his wheel and a gap to Flückiger while N1NO suddenly was in 4th. Outside the reach of the TV cameras, a crash in the forest unfortunately cost the chance of the top spot for both Swiss riders.
Racing is racing and sometimes things get hectic fighting for a big win. However, to us this action appears to be a poor reaction on what happened at World Championships last year, when N1NO overpassed Matthias shortly before the finish line. Only that the maneuver of Nino at worlds was fair and square, not resulting into a crash. Flückiger and Schurter spent the past two weeks together at the training camp of the Swiss national team. It’s sad their effort preparing well for this race came to such an end.
Nino Schurter
9x World Champion, World Cup Leader 2022
SCOTT-SRAM MTB Racing
Kate Courtney
With a good 7th place finish in the XCC, Kate showed she is on a strong comeback. First front row start of this season gave her the chance to control her pace early in the race instead of wasting a lot of energy fighting for positions. She was riding smart using her energy throughout the race just perfectly. At the end she even had some left to move up few spots to cross the line in strong 7th place. It’s great to see her smiling again at the finish line. And this is just the start of a journey back to the very top.
Instead of heading to next weekend’s World Cup race in Andorra, she decided to go for the hunt of the Stars and Stripes jersey at US Nationals. She will join the rest of the team again at the Snow Shoe World Cup.
Lars Forster & Andri Frischknecht
Lars has a very tough period behind him. His knee injury forced him to stay off the bike for quite some time. The healing took a long time. Several times he had to take another break just after getting started with training again. First of all, today he was just happy to be back racing. And with this far from ideal preparation, his 24th comes as a very positive surprise. Well done for fighting through this!
Andri’s race was not as good as he was hoping for. He never really made it up to the top ranks, as we have seen him do in the last races. He finished right behind Lars in 25th.
Team of the day and World Cup leading team
At the end of the day, the fact SCOTT-SRAM won the “team of the day” ranking and took over the overall lead in the team standing, made the shock of N1NO’s outcome fade away. Proud to put on the yellow number plates of the leading team at the next World Cup stop in Andorra next weekend
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