Andri Frischknecht from the "Scott Sram MTB Racing Team" has to give up the race due to an injury to his hand after a fall yesterday. His team partner Matthias Stirnemann is riding today's stage alone for training purposes, but out of competition. The Swiss team of favorites is therefore unfortunately out of the classification early on. The Centurion-Vaude team with Daniel Geismayr and Jochen Käss is doing moderately well today: Käss is not in top form due to an upset stomach and so the Austrian-German duo only rides to third place today, but defends second place overall.

The Texpa-Simplon team, formed at short notice with Christoph Soukup and Michael Stünzi, managed second place today - despite a defect. Both of their original team partners had crashed in training for the prologue on Sunday, whereupon the remaining riders came together as a newly combined team. The Austrian and the Swiss remain in third place, although they hardly knew each other beforehand. In view of this new starting position, the well-rehearsed BiXS Pro team with Konny Looser and Oliver Zurbrügg is now likely to be the favorites.

In the women's race, the long-distance favorites from Team Meerendal-CBC, Esther Süss and Jennie Stenerhag, clearly set themselves apart today and, with a time of 5:26.00 hours, not only took the stage win but also the leader's jersey. Ariane Lüthi and Alice Pirard, Team Spur-Wallonie, are relegated to second place.

"Boredom" in the flow race

Not that the race was boring - no, but the leading duo from Belgium after the prologue won the first stage with a lead of almost 30 minutes over René Wildhaber and Alex Fiva, who are now 40 minutes behind in the overall standings. Excitement in the overall classification looks somewhat different. As in the prologue, third place goes to René Imdorf and Roman Rohrer.

In the mixed and women's teams, Team Perskindol-Vojo Mag with Tim Jacobs and Kristien Achten swap places with Jim Laughlin and Jodie Willett (Team Flight Center - Bike Rite) in the stage and overall classifications. With only ten seconds between these two teams, a duel seems to be brewing.
Down yesterday, much improved today: the "Gehrig Twins - Ibis Cycles Enduro Team" with Anita and Carolin Gehrig made it onto the podium on the big first stage. The pair have also worked their way up to third place in the overall standings.


Full results 1st stage

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