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Nino repeats his world cup victory in Petermaritzburg



While Nino celebrates a sweet victory over Burry Stander and Manuel Fumic at the South African world cup, his team mate Florian Vogel is taken out of the race by a mechanical. Thats how close heaven and hell can be in sports!

Right from the start Schurter showed his ambitions by setting a pace that only few could follow. Even last years dominating Kulhavy was struggeling. Absalon never made it to the top lead group and also Hermida dropped back after some time. Only local star Burry Stander and Manuel Fumic where strong enough to stay at the front with Nino. They worked well together until  Fumic had to let go too. After that it was the same battle as last weekend on the same course. Nino choose excact the same strategie, trying to put Burry in the defense on the descents. This formula also helped Nino to get ahead of Julien Absalon a year ago. And it still works. In the most difficult section called the "rockgarden" Nino droped Burry a bit more than a lap to go. After that it was a clean ride to the finish.

"It's awesome to start the season like this. It builds confidence towards my main goal of the season and this are the Olympic Games."

Far away from beeing excited was our secnd ass in the team. Unfortunately Florian Vogel got only 3/4 of first lap until he ripped his tubular off the rim riding trough a compresssion. This pulled him out of the race. Not only was he posioned well and feeling strong, this race was also the first of four selection races for Olympics. He will have to dig deep at the next world cup stop in Houffalize starting out of 61st position. "This is hard to except. Mechanicals happen once in a while, but this one came about in the worst moment. I hope I can deliver the answer to this dilemma in Belgium in a month from now.

A good performance was seen by our U23 rider Roger Walder. He finished in the seperate U23 world cup as the best Swiss rider in 16th place. Considering he had to start in his first U23 world cup all the way in the back this was a good show.