2021 UCI Indoor Cycling World Championships: medals for Switzerland, Austria and Germany on day two

Day two of the UCI Indoor Cycling World Championships in Stuttgart (Germany) saw medals go to Austria, Switzerland and hosts Germany. There were two German 1-2s in artistic cycling: Single Women and Pair Open. In cycle ball, the host nation’s team emerged as the winner of the exciting preliminary round and thus moves directly into the medal round of the best three teams on Sunday.

Single Women: pressure and delivery

In the Single Women artistic cycling competition, Milena Slupina (Bernlohe/GER), claimed her third title following success in 2017 and 2019. Slupina kept her rainbow stripes with a new UCI World Championships record of 194.56 points, but claimed: “I didn't defend the title, I won it again. Nobody can take away my two previous victories, even if I hadn't made it today."

Of course the pressure was very high. “That's just the way it is when you're regarded as a favourite," said Slupina. But she thinks that's the same in every competition, only this time almost 4,000 spectators created a loud atmosphere before and after their performance. "That was absolute madness, what is going on!"

Slupina brought herself into distress only for a brief moment; reversing hands-free on the rear wheel, she had to break off and restart. "That cost me valuable time. I was then ten seconds behind my normal routine and had to get through very efficiently,” she said, knowing that only with a flawless freestyle could she get gold.

Slupina’s fiercest competitor from her own camp, Lara Füller (Poppenweiler/GER), had presented strongly at her first UCI World Championship. The local hero, who is based just 20km from Stuttgart, scored 182.96 points in the medal round, collecting a larger deduction only with a pirouette. "I was far less nervous than in the qualification the day before,“ said the reigning German Champion. "Everyone told me to just enjoy the final and that's what I did,” she said with a beaming smile.

The bronze medal went to Alessa Hotz from Switzerland, who was also competing in her first UCI World Championships and achieved a new personal best with 169.95 points. Hotz almost fell during an exercise, “but I gave everything to stay on the bike,” she said. Cheered on by the audience the Swiss athlete saved herself to finish flawlessly. It was her first appearance in front of an audience in a long time: during the Covid-19 pandemic, all tournaments in Switzerland have been held without spectators.

The Austrian Lorena Schneider had to settle for fourth place. But the 2019 UCI World Cup third-placed rider took the result in true sporting spirit, walking off with a smile to immediately congratulate her opponent.

Pair Open: goosebumps and celebrations

The three-time UCI World Champions Serafin Schefold and Max Hanselmann from Club RV Öhringen took victory in style in artistic cycling’s Pair Open category. Their performance, only four hundredths below their own UCI World Championship record from two years ago, yielded 168.21 points, and was too hot for the other competitors.

"The atmosphere was phenomenal once again," said Serafin. While warming up, he dared to take a quick look at the Porsche Arena. "I already got goosebumps and during our routine the spectators clapped almost too loudly at our highlights. It was just a crazy feeling".

The duo already have their sights firmly set on the 2022 season and they want to be part of the UCI Cycling World Championships in Glasgow, Scotland (Great Britain) in 2023. But there is certainly strong competition coming through, including the mixed duo Nico Rödiger and Lea-Victoria Styber, who formed just a year ago and came through the tough German WCC qualification. "We had a very changeable season and are now simply overwhelmed to be vice UCI World Champions," says Nico.

Although Lea stood on the ground twice, they unpacked a firecracker of maximum difficulties. “Our goal was 150 points and silver," Lea said – and their result was 151.38 points and, indeed, second place.

Austria’s third-place pair of Marcel Schnetzer and Katharina Kühne were not entirely satisfied with their presentation, having experienced an avoidable double fall. "With or without this blunder, it would not have changed the placement," admitted Marcel, "but you still want to deliver a perfect routine for the UCI World Championships."  For him it was a second bronze medal after 2016 with Jana Latzer, also in Stuttgart. Fourth place went to the Czech pair Jakub Masek and Tomas Gruna.

Cycle ball: dramatic battles

An exciting cycle ball preliminary round ended with victory for the German team in the prestige duel against Austria. Gerhard and Bernd Mlady, 2017 UCI World Champions and silver medallists in 2019, beat the multiple UCI World Champion Patrick Schnetzer with his new partner Stefan Feuerstein in a thrilling fight that ended 7:4. It brought Germany to the top of the ranking and directly into the final round of three teams, where a medal awaits.

The result meant that Austria goes into the knockout round as a third-placed team and will meet the Czech Republic (fourth position). In the earlier match against the Czech Republic, with the score at 3:3 just a few seconds before the end, Austria’s Schnetzer was shown the yellow-red card for unsporting behaviour. The game was therefore automatically scored 5:0 for the Czech Republic.

Second place in the ranking went to Switzerland (Severin and Benjamin Waibel), who drew with Austria 3-3 and beat Germany 1-0 in the morning, but lost 2-1 to last-placed Belgium. Next, Switzerland are to compete against France (5th position) in the playoff match.

Japan emerged winner of B group ahead of Hungary and Hong Kong. Japan will play on Sunday against the bottom team of the A-Division, Belgium, for promotion to the top 6 nations.