All six of the teams that have qualified for the UCI Indoor Cycling World Championships that will be held in Stuttgart (Germany) at the end of October are set to compete on Saturday 16 October in Beringen, Belgium.
And with these six teams that hail from Austria, Germany, Switzerland, the Czech Republic, Belgium and France, the newly crowned National Champions of their nations will also be ready to compete in the forthcoming Belgium event. With this quality of field, there can hardly be a better test of UCI World Championships form.
2021’s first UCI Cycle-ball World Cup winners
At the end of April, we saw the first 2021 UCI Cycle-ball World Cup event held, returning after the break enforced by the world’s efforts to help deal with the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic. And at that inaugural round, the victory went to a newly formed duo from Austria. After the resignation of his long-time partner Markus Bröll, the multiple UCI World Champion Patrick Schnetzer has been competing with Stefan Feuerstein as a team for the RV Dornbirn since 2020.
And it was the Schnetzer-Feuerstein duo who immediately won the UCI Cycle-ball World Cup opener with a dramatic victory in their own hall, ahead of UCI Vice-World Champions Gerhard and Bernd Mlady (RMC Stein-GER). It is these two pairs who are acknowledged as the favourites for success in Beringen.
Also featuring in the first UCI World Cup round of 2021 were the Swiss Severin and Benjamin Waibel (RMV Pfungen). They are one of three teams who, if not outright favourites, are certainly ones to watch!
The champions assemble
Also to be considered strong contenders are the 2019 German National Champions, André and Raphael Kopp from RV Obernfeld (GER). After missing out on another UCI Indoor Cycling World Championships qualification, this pair is highly motivated to prove themselves internationally.
And along with them, also look out for the new German runners-up, Sven Holland-Moritz and Marius Hermanns (RSC Schiefbahn), the duo who are contesting their first UCI Cycle-ball World Cup tournament of the season.
Hopes for the hosts
For the host team, Beringen, the event’s organizer, Niels Dirikx is also set to compete himself. Together with his partner Brecht Damen, he dreams of reaching the semi-finals. And at this event their chance to do so is real in the preliminary round group two. The Belgians will be next to the favorite Stein with the Czech runner-up Brno (Robert Zvolanek and Jan Havlicek), the French Champion Dorlisheim (Quentin and Mathias Seyfried) and Sankt-Pölten (Michael and Manuel Schlachtner-AUT).