Strong Alessandra Keller finishes fifth – victory in the team classification
Alessandra Keller (Thömus maxon) achieved a podium finish in fifth place at the first Cross Country World Cup of the season. With Mathias Flückiger (7th), Lars Forster (8th) and Vital Albin (11th) the men showed a strong performances and won the team ranking – first time in team history!
In Nove Mesto (Cze), Alessandra Keller rode extremely deliberate and consistent in a women’s race that could hardly be surpassed in terms of tension. After the 27-year-old was not able to position herself optimally at the start, she stayed cool and fought her way forward lap after lap. With a final sprint, the world number 1 took fifth place on the podium. The race was won by the young Dutch shootingstar Puck Pieterse.
Keller was satisfied with her World Cup start: “The start phase really didn’t go well for me. But I stayed calm, found my rhythm and was able to make up position after position in this extremely fast race. It makes me feel positive that I was able to start the World Cup season with a podium finish.”
Great team performance
In the elite men’s race, the absolute crowning achievement of a podium finish was missing, but the team delivered a brilliant start to the season. Mathias Flückiger was present at the front from the start, but had to leave the fight for the podium places to others. The Olympic silver medalist from Tokyo finished the race, which was won by Britain’s Tom Pidcock, in a good 7th place. Right behind Flückiger, Lars Forster showed all his class in wet, cold and difficult conditions and finished eighth. Vital Albin was also super strong and finished eleventh among the world’s best.
Thus Thömus maxon wrote team history. For the first time the team classification could be won in the men’s category. One of the season’s goals of team manager Ralph Näf. He drew an extremely positive conclusion of the entire World Cup opener: “We were not worse than 14th place in any race, took three podium places and were awarded the title of best team for the first time. The whole crew worked together perfectly. Today we had the perfect tire choice. It’s an insane start to the World Cup season.”
Wiedmann in the top 10
Already on Saturday Luke Wiedmann competed in the U23 World Cup and also achieved a top result with 9th place.