Mention the name Frischknecht in off-road cycling circles and you may as well embark on a game of Word Association. Some will shout out “Andri”, others “Thomas” while another group will opt for “Peter”.
All above answers are correct.
Andri, Thomas and Peter represent Switzerland, and above all three generations of the Frischknecht family. Between them they have 23 World Championships medals… and counting.
The “baby” of this cycling dynasty, Andri, won the family’s latest World Championships medal as part of the Swiss XCO relay team in Hafjell, Norway, last September. Switzerland won silver behind a strong French team. It was Andri Frischknecth’s first Elite world medal after the 15 (mainly mountain bike but also cyclo-cross) won by his father Thomas “Frischi” and seven (cyclo-cross) claimed by his grandfather Peter.
Never has the expression “it runs in the family” been truer. But forget any ideas of internal family pressure being put on the offspring. Peter explains: “He (Thomas) naturally grew up in a cycling environment as he came to all my races ever since he was born. His results were pretty impressive right from the beginning but I didn’t encourage him. It was not my intention to continue going to races every weekend after doing that myself for 20 years.”
Remarks backed up by his son Frischi: “He really wasn’t too keen to go to races weekend after weekend."
I wanted to race bikes and he was there to support me….
"(With Andri) I tried to do the same as my father did with me. Slow him down where needed but be there to support. He wanted to race, race, race and I limited the number of races to keep his interest high.
“My father was a great sports model and I had a lot of respect for him. Maybe I sometimes felt a certain pressure to fulfil expectations in the name of Frischknecht, but it also opened a lot of doors.”
Still with a few years to go in the Under-23 category, the Junior of the clan admits it’s not easy to live up to the reputations of Frischi and Peter: “Sure I can benefit a lot from them but people forget in the end that I am Andri and not them.”
Originally a runner, Peter Frischknecht was enticed into cyclo-cross by Albert Meier, bronze medallist at the 1952 UCI World Championships who lived in the same town: “In the 60s when I started cyclo-cross it was very popular in Switzerland. Mountain bike didn’t exist back then, and as a runner, cyclo-cross made more sense to me than road.”
His son Frischi started out as a cyclo-cross specialist. He was Junior World Champion in 1988 and one of the world’s best in the early 90s. For several years he tried to race both seasons but decided to focus more on mountain bike when it became part of the Olympic programme. For the records, he won the silver medal in Atlanta 1996.
As for the youngest Frischknecht, he won’t be drawn into making public declarations about his next goals in the different disciplines. After winning the silver medal at the U23 Swiss Cyclo-cross Championships at the beginning of the year and finishing 16th at the UCI Cyclo-cross World Championships a month later, Andri Frischknecht is back on his mountain bike.
He spent some time training and racing in South Africa and the United States with his Scott-Odlo MTB Racing Team and has now embarked on the European mountain bike season. The UCI Mountain Bike World Cup presented by Shimano gets under way for the XCO riders this weekend.
“I’ll take it step by step. In the next two years I want to establish myself in the U23 category,” says the athlete who finished 9th in the UCI Mountain Bike World Championships U23 XCO race last year.
Andri occasionally trains with his father, and shortly after last year’s UCI Mountain Bike World Championships the pair formed a formidable team in the inaugural Swiss Epic mountain bike stage race. Up against some of the world’s best they finished ninth out of 90 Elite Men’s teams.
“It was a great experience for both of us,” says Frischi, who claims that he is still the one to call the shots even if he knows he can’t keep up with his son.
Andri confirms:
“My father is the boss. But the fastest? That’s me!”
He hasn’t had his last word…