The eighth and final qualification round of the 2015 UCI Cycle-ball World Cup was one of the most hard-fought of the season.
Ten teams from six nations lined up in the Austrian town of Höchst at the weekend, where the local duo of Patrick Schnetzer and Markus Bröll, reigning UCI World Champions, lived up to their status of favourites. Up against the German team from RV Gärtringen (Uwe Berner – Matthias König) in the final, the home team took a decisive 8:2 victory. It was their 10th win as a team.
In the play-off for third place, Switzerland’s RS Altdorf (Roman Schneider and Dominik Planzer) beat Germans RMC Stein (Gerhard and Bernd Mlady) 7:4.
Probably one of the biggest upsets of the season is the failure of RC Winterthur, from Switzerland, to qualify for December’s UCI World Cup Final. The duo of Peter Jiricek and Marcel Waldispühl needed to finish in the top five in Höchst to secure a place in the Final. However after losing against Austrian Champions RC Höchst II (Simon König – Florian Fischer) 1:6, they finally finished in 6th place. After competing in 13 consecutive UCI Cycle-ball World Cup Finals, Jiricek will be absent for the first time since 2001.
The 14th UCI Cycle-ball World Cup Final will take place in the Swiss village of Mosnang on December 5th. The qualified teams after the eight preliminary rounds are three teams from Germany (RV Gärtringen, RMC Stein, RV Obernfeld), two teams from Austria (RC Höchst I and II), two teams from the Czech Republic (TJ Favorit Brno, SC Svitavka), two teams from Switzerland (RS Altdorf, RMW Mosnang – wild card) and a Japanese team to represent the Asian continent.