The Swiss mountain bikers close the mountain bike season without one last success.
Filippo Colombo, Nino Schurter and Marcel Guerrini finished 7th, 8th and 10th at the World Cup finale in Mont-Sainte-Anne, Canada, in the triumphant ride of overall World Cup winner Alan Hatherly.
Colombo thus defended 3rd place in the overall World Cup ahead of Schurter and Mathias Flückiger. Schurter was within sight of the podium places until the middle of the race ahead of Colombo, but lost a few positions as the drizzle set in. Flückiger, the best Swiss rider at the Olympic Games in Paris and the World Championships in Andorra this year in fifth and eighth place respectively, was unable to finish higher than 23rd.
South African Hatherly rounded off his outstanding year with his third World Cup victory of the season in the main discipline. The 28-year-old world champion and Olympic bronze medallist, who has only failed to make the podium in three cross-country races this season, pulled away from the competition by half a minute or more early on in the race, but was caught by Frenchman Mathis Azzaro. On the penultimate lap, he finally distanced his first rival once again. Third place went to Azzaro's compatriot Victor Koretzky.
The Swiss men, who were spoiled for success, thus ended a somewhat less glorious year without the final fireworks that Schurter had hoped for before the start. The 35th World Cup victory in Val di Sole in June for the 39-year-old from Graubünden, who has so far left open whether he will continue his career after a strong spring and a mixed fall, is the only one for the Swiss men in cross-country this season.
SDA
