Cycling: At the UCI MTB World Championships there was only one question before the start of the men's race – who would be able to keep defending champion Nino Schurter on a short leash?
The Swiss gave the answer right after the start: Nobody at first. After just a few kilometers he had opened up a gap to second-placed Manuel Fumic. For his part, the Stuttgarter led an illustrious group with the Swiss Mathias Flückiger, the Swede Emil Lindgren and the Australian Daniel McConnell.
Overall World Cup winner Julien Absalon, who was riding a fully for the first time, was already 26 seconds behind at the end of the first lap. Olympic champion Jaroslav Kulhavy had 32 seconds to make up for Schurter at this point.
In the second lap, Absalon, together with the Italian Marco Fonatana, managed to catch up to Fumic relatively quickly and reduced the gap to Schurter to 19 seconds.
However, it didn't last long and the Frenchman was alone on the heels of the strong Swiss.
By the end of the second lap, Absalon was within 9 seconds of Schurter. Fontana positioned himself behind in third place ahead of his Cannondale teammate Fumic. Just one lap later, Absalon had caught Schurter. Behind them, Fumic and Fontana defended a lead of just under a minute over the other top 10 aspirants.
At the end of the fifth lap, Absalon Schurter attacked on the climb and was able to open a gap. After one hour of racing, the Frenchman was on course for the title. The Frenchman took a 17-second lead over Schurter on the two finish laps. The Swiss defending champion had to defend himself against the Fumic-Fontana duo. Behind these two, Moritz Milatz, another German, placed in the top 5.
In the sixth lap, Absalon steadily increased his lead over Schurter, while Fumic struggled with technical problems and had to let Fontana go. Milatz was able to catch up with Fumic from behind.
In front, however, Absalon dominated the last kilometers. After 1:27:06 hours, the Frenchman secured another world title. Schurter ended up 1:51 behind the Frenchman, also because he fell near the end of the race. Third was Fontana, 3:28 minutes behind, who managed to save himself from Milatz. Fumic underlined the good performance of the German men in fifth place.
Canadian Catharine Pendrel was the dominant driver among the women. Despite a flat tire on the last lap, she secured the world title 21 seconds ahead of former Russian world champion Irina Kalentieva and 43 seconds ahead of Lea Davison (USA). The best German was Sabine Spitz in eighth place, 3:05 minutes behind.