Mountain biker versus skier

It was a great year for Mathias Flückiger. He got off to a brilliant start to the season and never looked back. Flückiger became Swiss champion, won silver at the Olympic Games and the World Championships, won the overall World Cup and finished the season at the top of the world rankings. After winning the Swiss Cycling Awards, the 33-year-old would also be more than deserving of the Sports Award.

Nino Schurter is also nominated in the same category. In a mixed season, Schurter repeatedly showed flashes of his ability, but was often poorly rewarded. At the World Championships, however, the Grisons rider managed to combine all his skills with the perfect tactics to take the rainbow jersey for the ninth time in the final meters of the race.
It won't be easy for Flückiger and Schurter. Although the skiers Beat Feuz and Marco Odermatt are inferior in terms of results, the two will be hoping that the many ski fans will vote for them in the public vote.

Tough competition for Neff

The images of the Olympic women's race are unforgettable. Neff wins From the serious accident at the beginning of 2020 to the Olympic Games, Jolanda Neff probably experienced more downs than ups on the sporting stage. The fact that she won Olympic gold ahead of her teammates Sina Frei and Linda Indergand after this tough time and thus wrote a more beautiful story than any fairy tale with a happy ending should be reason enough to choose Neff as Sportswoman of the Year.

It's not quite that simple after all. Tennis player Belinda Bencic also went through a few valleys during her career, after which she won Olympic gold in singles and silver in doubles in Tokyo. And Lara Gut-Behrami, super-G world champion and World Cup winner, is another extremely successful athlete vying for the title of "Sportswoman of the Year 2021".

Now it's up to the mountain bike community

The top Swiss athletes, the Swiss sports media and sportpress.ch have already made a shortlist of six candidates in advance. On Sunday, December 12, 2021, it will be up to the public to vote for their favorites. The votes of the TV audience, the media and the top athletes will each count for a third.

The call to mountain bike fans is therefore to tune in to SRF1 (RTS 2 in French-speaking Switzerland and RSI LA 2 in Ticino) on Sunday, 12 December at 20:05 and vote for their favorite in the televoting.

Voting for the "SRF 3 Best Talent Sport" closes on Friday evening. Joel Roth, the two-time European cross-country champion in the U23 category, has a good chance of winning the title. The Aargau native is up against biathlete Amy Baserga and track and field athlete Ditaji Kambundji.

The fifth mountain biker in the group is behind the fluttering tapes. Edi Telser, the national coach of the Swiss cross-country riders, is up for Coach of the Year 2021 along with Laurent Meuwly (athletics) and Beat Tschuor (alpine skiing). The winners of this category have already been chosen by the Swiss sports media, sportpress.ch and the top athletes of Swiss Olympic and Swiss Paralympics.

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