Under a steel-blue Engadine sky, Simon Vitzthum (jb Brunex felt) from Rheineck (canton of St. Gallen) finished second today, 1:58 minutes behind the Austrian stage winner Daniel Geismayr (winning time 2:56:36 h), to secure overall victory in the fifth edition of the Engadin Bike Giro. At the start of the 64.4 km, 1,992 m climb third stage, Vitzthum was just one second ahead of his closest rival, Lukas Flückiger from Team Infinity in Wyniger (Canton Bern), while Geismayr was already more than half an hour behind in the overall standings after technical problems on the second stage. As a result, the leading group of around ten did not counter the attack by Austrian national champion Geismayr up the Sulvretta Pass and let him go. This led to the expected showdown between Vitzthum and Flückiger, which the former won by a clear margin of 37 seconds. Flückiger paid great respect to the 25-year-old's performance: "I don't begrudge Simon the overall victory. He was very strong and consistently delivered very good performances. He is in good form. That's world class!" Flückiger, who would have liked to win the overall classification himself, had stomach problems in the last part of the long climb and had to let Vitzthum go. In the meantime, Vitzthum's lead had even grown to three minutes, but while Flückiger did everything he could to catch up with Vitzthum again on the final singletrails, he rode on the safe side: "I knew I had to stay calm. A one-second lead is nothing, a flat tire costs a lot more time. But I also knew that Flückiger, Julian Schelb and Thomas Litscher would be faster than me on the downhill. That's why I had to ride with a lead beforehand." Two weeks before the Swiss Olympic Cross-Country Championships in Gränichen (Aargau), Vitzthum is in brilliant shape.

Daniel Geismayr (Centurion-Vaude) "really wanted to show again today what I can do and what is possible." The rider from Vorarlberg did just that: "I was able to ride my rhythm on the long climb." He quickly pulled out a small lead, felt like he was "in a tunnel" and climbed up to the Sulvretta Pass: "It was definitely an advantage to ride up the narrow hairpin bends alone. It was relatively steep and slippery there. If one person makes a mistake, everyone has to dismount." However, Geismayr did not have to risk anything there or on the descent and won the stage after 2:56:36 hours, almost forty minutes faster than the winning time in the organizer's march table.

Thomas Litscher (KMC Orbea) and Flückiger battled for third place in the daily classification in a sprint on the shores of Lake Silvaplana. The Swiss Cycling commissioners declared Flückiger third by a wafer-thin margin and only after evaluating the finish film, while Litscher had to settle for fourth place, but had no great ambitions for the overall standings: "I've set good incentives for the next two weekends", on which a race of the national cross-country racing series Swiss Bike Cup in Leukerbad and the Swiss Championships are on the program in Switzerland. "My legs were at their worst on the first day, yesterday they were better and today they were even better. I'm really happy, everything is going well," said the 31-year-old, satisfied with his fourth place in the overall standings (+5:15 min). In between, Julian Schelb from Team Stop&Go Marderabwehr from Münstertal finished third overall. Although he had no podium finishes in the individual stages (sixth in stage 1, fourth in stage 2, fifth in stage 3), Schelb's consistently good performances meant that he steadily climbed up the overall standings: "I can draw a very positive balance. I always got the maximum out of it and rode very consistently." While many athletes were able to spend more time training in times of coronavirus, the trained carpenter and semi-mountain bike pro took a different approach: he even increased his working hours from 60 to 80 percent: "If there are no races at the weekend, I can work more."

The loser in the men's race was last year's winner Sascha Weber, who had spent weeks preparing for this race in Livigno, not far from the Engadine. He unfortunately injured his thumb in a crash on the first stage. Although he was able to win the second stage, the Saarland native, who now lives in the mountain bike Mecca of the Black Forest, had to give up unexpectedly on the third stage: "As we crossed a railroad line, I realized that I would hardly be able to ride down the long descent from the Sulfretta Pass with my damaged thumb, as beautiful as the trails there are. It was with a heavy heart that I decided to end the race early."

While the men's race was highly dramatic, the women's race saw a confident, undisputed winner: with three stage victories, 24-year-old Swiss rider Alessandra Keller (RN Thömus) also secured the overall victory of the Engadin Bike Giro in a total time of 9:33:37 hours, almost twenty minutes ahead of her compatriot Linda Indergand, who started in the Swiss national team jersey. She laid the foundations for her overall victory on the climbs, where she hardly lost any time to her rivals. On the downhills, however, she showed off her technical brilliance: "Today I suffered a lot on the long climb. My legs were a bit tired from the last two days. It was really steep and really long," said Keller, describing the climb of almost 1,000 vertical meters in one go up to the Sulvretta Pass. Like all the other almost 500 participants, she was rewarded with the magnificent view and "really cool and really many trails" downhill. Keller had not expected to dominate the high-class race: "I didn't expect the overall victory to be so clear. But I felt very good beforehand and was able to train well despite corona. It was really time for me to reach my full potential, even after my injury last year," said Keller, who is taking a break from her pharmacy studies to prepare for the Olympics, after crossing the finish line directly on the famous kite beach in Silvaplana.

German champion Elisabeth Brandau from Team Radon EBE-Racing achieved her best result of the day. After not coping at all with the cold and damp weather on the second stage, the cross-country specialist, for whom climbs rarely last longer than a few minutes at a time, was able to manage the 3:43-hour race better: "I don't know such a long climb from cross-country, and I haven't even trained for it yet this year. So I was afraid that it wouldn't be enough at the end." Brandau had lost touch with Keller on a short descent before the long climb, but was able to close the gap again and had a lead of around a minute on Keller at the top. "But Alessandra caught up with me again straight away." The two rode together for a while before Keller accelerated and pulled away from the German. At the finish, Brandau was 3:46 minutes behind Keller, which was enough for second place in the day's classification and also knocked Adelheid Morath (KS Trek, Freiburg) out of third place overall.

Downhill enthusiast Linda Indergand was also thrilled with the "flowing trails" on today's route. But until she reached them, the athlete from the canton of Uri had to "suffer a lot", as she said at the finish. "But the fact that the last descent was so technically difficult played into my hands. It could always be like this for me," she said, beaming with the sun on Silvaplana's kite beach. Her organizer Kai Sauser was happy to grant her wish. For him, the fifth edition of the Engadin Bike Giro was "a dream come true that the race could take place at all, that we were allowed to organize it and that the athletes could compete again," said Sauser with a view to the corona pandemic: "It was a great atmosphere throughout the weekend. Everyone was really up for it again. It's just great fun." Corona has brought the organizers from Villingen-Schwenningen a new record number of participants despite corona restrictions and the hygiene concept. "Previously, 300 to 400 athletes of all ages had competed in the Upper Engadine, but this year there were 470," says Sauser happily. He is now looking ahead to his event agency's next major event, the Rothaus Bike Giro in the Black Forest. "So far, we have the okay for 500 participants over four days."

Results overall