Podium and overall lead for Alessandra Keller
The start of the home World Cup in Lenzerheide was a complete success for Team Thömus maxon. Alessandra Keller achieved a strong second place in the Short Track on Friday evening and thus took over the XCC discipline lead. The men convinced with an extremely compact team performance and start on Sunday from a promising position for the XCO race.
Just a little bit was missing and Alessandra Keller could have celebrated her first World Cup victory this season on home soil. In the second last lap the Jenny Rissveds (Swe) was able to pull away slightly and bring this advantage to the finish. Behind her, Keller sprinted to an excellent second place – for the second time in a row at the World Cup. As a result, Keller took the top spot in the intermediate standings of the overall short track ranking.
“The confirmation of my performance from last year”
Alessandra Keller was very satisfied with the outcome of the race. “It went optimally. I had the same tactics as Jenny Rissveds. Unfortunately, I could not close the gap completely at the end. It’s brilliant to be on the podium in front of the home crowd. That I can take over the leader’s jersey comes as a surprise. For me it is the confirmation of my performance of the last season. Now I’m really looking forward to Sunday.”
The men’s race also offered plenty of excitement. It included Mathias Flückiger, Lars Forster and Vital Albin. All three showed an excellent performance in a very hectic short track, which was won by Luca Schwarzbauer (Ger). In the order mentioned at the beginning, the Thömus-maxon trio took the places 6, 7 and 9. With the 5th place of Luke Wiedmann on Thursday a perfect team performance resulted; four times first and once second starting row for Sunday.
Handicapped but satisfied
Mathias Flückiger, who started the race handicapped, drew a positive conclusion at the finish: “I didn’t feel my thumb during the race. It certainly took energy in the last two days. That’s probably why I lacked a bit of freshness. I’m satisfied because two days ago I didn’t believe I would even be at the start today.”