Indoor cycling won the hearts of new fans as it was exposed to an unprecedented audience as part of the thrilling UCI Cycling World Championships taking place in Glasgow and across Scotland.
On the last day of indoor cycling action at Glasgow’s Emirates Arena, Germany claimed both cycle-ball titles including the first ever UCI World title for women’s cycle-ball.
The final artistic cycling events saw victories for Germany’s Ramona Dandl in the Single Women category and the Swiss quartet in the Act4 final.
Men’s cycle-ball: Kopp cousins create surprise
Germany’s Andre and Raphael Kopp are the surprise cycle-ball 2023 UCI World Champions after claiming victory in their debut appearance together at the UCI Worlds. It is also André Kopp’s last appearance, as he is retiring from competition.
André Kopp has attended countless UCI World Championships as a substitute…. until this season, when he finally managed to qualify with his partner Raphael Kopp. Winning the prestigious rainbow jersey was almost more than he could have hoped for.
In the final, the German cousins from RV Stahlross Obernfeld surpassed themselves in a match against the Swiss pair Yannick and Timon Fröhlich (Radsport Altdorf), who were also making their UCI World Championships debut. After a fairly close score - 2-1 in their favour - at half-time, Germany pulled away in the second half to claim a decisive victory, 6-2.
Their victory was all the sweeter considering the Kopps had to go through the repechages to make the semi-finals, where they met the defending UCI World Champions and preliminary round winners Austria (Patrick Schnetzer/ Stefan Feurstein). In a thrilling duel, the Kopp cousins prevailed 5-4.
In the match for third place, Austria took bronze with an 8-5 win over the Czech Republic (Tomas Horak / Radek Adam).
At their third attempt, group-B winners Japan succeeded in the relegation play-off for the sixth A-group place at the 2024 UCI Indoor Cycling World Championships, which will take place in Bremen, Germany. Yuma Takahashi and Yusuke Murakami beat the Belgian pair of Kenny Michalik and Robby Gubbelmans, 7-1.
Women's Cycle-ball: history is made
For the first time, a women's UCI World Champion title was awarded in cycle-ball. Germany (Nadine Jacqueline Weber and Claire Feyler) faced Japan (Sayaka Kizawa and Kana Murabayashi) directly in the final. The German women improved throughout the match to win 3-0 and go down in the history of indoor cycling as the first women’s cycle-ball UCI World Champions.
Artistic cycling, Single Women: Dandl does it!
At the end of the single women’s final, German athletes Lara Füller and Ramona Dandl stood arm in arm and looked up at the scoreboard… It was about to reveal which of them would take the gold medal. Although neither rider had performed perfectly, they were clearly ahead of the other competitors. Lara Füller had scored 178.99 points and had to await Dandl's result to discover if she would win gold or silver. Victory finally went to Dandl (182.93) who improves on last year’s silver medal. Füller won silver for the second time, repeating her second position in 2021. Lorena Schneider from Austria secured third place for the second time, after 2019, with 172.34 points.
Artistic cycling, Act4: Swiss step up for gold!
It was a crash 20 seconds before the end that shattered the title dreams of the German Act4 team. The defending UCI World Champions Milena Schwarz, Tijem Karatas, Annika Rosenbach and Stella Rosenbach from RV Mainz Ebersheim/ Germany were suddenly on the ground during one of their last elements. Their 189.26 points were only enough for second place.
Last year's runners-up Switzerland (Flavia Schürmann, Carole Ledergerber, Stefanie Moos and Vanessa Hotz) also had a crash and time problems, but achieved the better score of 215.79, which made them the new UCI World Champions..
Laura Schnetzer, Lea Morscher, Annika Pichler and Anna Pircher from Austria were not phased by their first appearance at the UCI World Championships, and took bronze with 141.32 points.