SUPER STRONG FLÜCKIGER SECOND – WORLD CUP VICTORY IN THE TEAM CLASSIFICATION
A dramatic and ultimately successful end to the season for Thömus maxon! At the last World Cup race of the season in Mont-Sainte-Anne (Can) Mathias Flückiger is the strongest. Twice in the lead, the Swiss champion gets a flat tire and still finishes on a great second place. In addition, Thömus maxon takes the award as the best team of the whole season.
Rainfall has made the already extremely demanding course of Mont-Saint-Anne a brutal challenge for both the athletes and the material. Exactly the conditions that Mathias Flückiger loves. And so the 35-year-old also started the race strongly and confidently.
In the first lap Flückiger already took the lead, pursued by world champion Tom Pidock. This duel was hard to beat in terms of suspense. Flückiger picked up a flat tire on lap 2, but by the third lap he had already closed the gap to Pidcock and later took the lead again on his own. But on the second-last lap, the Swiss had to go to the technical zone again and have a rear wheel defect repaired.
“Today I gambled too much”.
Although mechanic Gavin Black changed the wheel twice extremely quickly, Flückiger was unable to close the roughly 35-second gap to Pidcock on the final lap and finished second: “I rode maybe too tightly on the limit with the tire pressure today. But sometimes you have to take a bit of risk and I was hoping for more traction on the climbs. But today I gambled too much. I would have liked to win today. But I am very satisfied with my performance,” analyzed Flückiger at the finish.
Victory in the team classification and strong Alessandra Keller
With the second place at the end of the season Flückiger also secured the third place in the overall World Cup. Thanks to another very strong team performance with Lars Forster (15th) and Vital Albin (20th), Thömus maxon took the overall World Cup victory in the team classification for the first time in team history. “A great crowning on a fantastic season,” said team manager Ralph Näf.
In the women’s race, Alessandra Keller once again showed all her class at the end. She competed in an extremely regular race and reached 8th place thanks to a strong final lap. In the overall World Cup, this resulted in 5th place. U23 rider Luke Wiedmann did not reach maximum performance level for the season finale; he finished 15th.
