Olympia / MTB News: Nino Schurter lived up to his role as favorite and won gold in mountain biking with a dominant and impressive performance on the last day of the Olympic Games in Rio. The 32-year-old Swiss prevailed with a lead of more than half a minute in front of the current World Cup leader Jaroslav Kulhavy from the Czech Republic and the Spaniard Carlos Coloma. Road world champion Peter Sagan, like Manuel Fumic, struggled with technical problems. While Fumic was still almost in the top 10, Sagan finished 34th, one lap down.
Difficult conditions today on the Olympic mountain bike course in the north of the metropolis. Heavy rainfall during the night had softened the subsoil in some places and made the surfaces of the stone fields greasy - so caution was advised. Immediately after the starting signal, Nino Schurter, who had already been considered the top favorite, took the lead together with Jaroslav Kulhavy - road world champion Peter Sagan was able to follow the two top mountain bikers and keep up the pace throughout the first lap. Manuel Fumic was very unlucky: During the first lap, the chain of the 34-year-old German broke, who lost an enormous amount of time and fell back to the end of the field.
It was a similar story for Peter Sagan, who suffered a flat tire on his front wheel shortly after the first passage through the technical zone and was quickly passed on. It was not to be the last defect for the Slovak, who only tried to limit the damage and finally crossed the finish line in 15th place, more than 34 minutes behind. Manuel Fumic fought his way back to a more than respectable 13th place with an extremely strong performance. The defect was all the more annoying, because without this loss of time, the German might have been a candidate for the top positions.
At the front, Schurter and Kulhavy were in their own league – Julien Absalon, the third part of the mountain bike triumvirate, on the other hand, had a bad day and was never able to match the pace of the front-runners. Behind the two front runners, Carlos Coloma and the Frenchman Maxime Marotte fought a great fight for the last remaining medal, which the Spaniard was able to secure at the end with a considerable margin. Schurter made his decisive attack at the beginning of the last lap and quickly distanced himself from his competitor and won his first Olympic gold medal.
