There are only three seconds between first and second place at the finish, but there has never been a duel between Nino Schurter and Jaroslav Kulhavy in Lenzerheide. He starts the race with bib number 22 and doesn't get off to a good start either. His seven laps are a race to catch up, which really gets going on the fourth lap after he finally gets a clear ride. After that, the Czech only produces best lap times.

Nino Schurter has to look around a few times on the final lap to make sure that his 24th World Cup success in front of 20,000 spectators (organizer's announcement) is not in jeopardy after all. The world champion is on top of the action right from the start and never gets caught on the defensive. Even if the Frenchman Maxime Marotte in particular does not want to settle for second place.
He and Schurter are in the leading group, which also includes Mathieu van der Poel (Ned) in the first two laps. However, the cyclo-cross star falls further and further behind from lap four onwards. Mathias Flückiger is also part of the leading group, but he is not doing well on this day either. He can't keep up the pace. Surprisingly, it is the Russian Anton Sintsov who catches up with the leaders on the fourth lap.
Nino Schurter tries to set the pace on the asphalt climb, but he can't get away. "I was under pressure right from the start. At the beginning, when Mathieu was with me as a cyclo-cross rider in the run sections, I never really got into the rhythm. I lost a lot of energy there. In the middle of the race I thought it was going to be tough today. I kept attacking and never got away. That really frustrated me," explained Schurter later.

However, Schurter always tries to keep his rivals busy in the hope that they will make mistakes. It worked, because a gap opened up on the penultimate lap. Marotte tries to follow, but Sintsov lags slightly behind. It was probably a little too much "in the red zone" for the Frenchman, so he struggled a short time later.
When Jaroslav Kulhavy came up behind, neither Sintsov nor Marotte were able to react. Instead, they fight it out for third place, with an advantage for the Russian, who is completely amazed that he is standing on a World Cup podium for the first time in Lenzerheide.
Kulhavy eats up the seconds, but he can no longer catch Schurter's rear wheel. The man from Chur is celebrated by an enthusiastic crowd for his fourth victory in a row. "If it had gone half a lap longer, I wouldn't have won today," admits Schurter.


Apart from him, no other Swiss rider made it into the top ten in front of their home crowd. Lukas Flückiger celebrates on the home straight and even loses eleventh place (+2:06) to Manuel Fumic, who had not even seen the Swiss at the line. Flückiger seemed to be on course for the podium for a while, but then some of his rivals marched past him.
"I actually thought I would ride on as quickly as I did, but the others were simply faster. I'm making small steps forward, but I could have finished in the top five today," he commented on his result. His brother Mathias was relegated to 15th position (+2:47). He moved his saddle forward a little, but he doesn't see this as the sole reason for a rather disappointing result after second place in Andorra. "The recovery and preparation since Andorra may not have been optimal either," muses Mathias Flückiger. "It just wasn't that good today."