15 years after retiring from competition, Belgian artistic cyclist Géry Covent made a comeback at the age of 36 to compete in his “home” UCI Indoor Cycling World Championships. The father of two finished 18th in the Single Men competition in Liège, Belgium.
1: A first in 2018 for artistic cycling with the first ever UCI Artistic Cycling World Cup, comprising four events in four countries and two continents between February and November. More than 160 athletes from 8 different countries took part in the first edition of this series.
8 rounds made up the UCI Cycle-ball World Cup before the Final which takes place in Klein-Gerau (Germany) on January 19th, 2019.
5: Austrians Patrick Schnetzer and Markus Bröll (Höchst) won back the cycle-ball rainbow jersey for their fifth triumph together since 2013. At the UCI Indoor Cycling World Championships in Liège, the Austrian pair beat defending UCI World Champions, German cousins Bernd and Gerhard Mlady who last year broke the Schnetzer/Bröll winning spell, albeit temporarily!
3 would appear to be Chin To Wong’s special number: in 2018 the artistic cyclist from Hong Kong won his fifth Single Men bronze medal at the UCI Indoor Cycling World Championships after 2013, 2014, 2015 and 2017.
200.36 was the number of points scored by Germany’s Lukas Kohl (RMSV Concordia Kirchehrenbach) to earn his third Single Men artistic cycling World title.
22 is the record number of countries represented at the UCI Indoor Cycling World Championships in 2018. For the first time in the event’s history the USA, Luxembourg and Spain entered athletes in the artistic cycling competitions.
63 is the combined age of Höchst II cycle-ball team Simon König and Florian Fischer, who retire from competition after January’s UCI Cycle-ball World Cup Final. König (30) and Fischer (33) are still at the top of their game: in the last World Cup round early November they beat clubmates and UCI World Champions Höchst I in a penalty shoot-out (3-2) after the two teams were still tied at the end of extra time.
2 is the number of disciplines performed during the Indoor Cycling demonstration in Innsbruck during the UCI Road World Championships. It was an opportunity for several delegates from National Federations to discover artistic cycling and cycle-ball and test their skills. A great success!