As is the case with Team Relay, it is difficult to assess what is possible on this day after starting rider Joel Roth (U23), who moves to eighth position, and junior Janis Baumann.
Roth delivered a good lap, but admits that he "accelerated too much" on the first climb and then had problems on the second. "Overall, I'm satisfied and it gave me the opportunity to ride at full speed on the downhill. You can't do that in training," says Roth.

Baumann changes in fifth place after starting "a bit hectic". "I made a lot of small driving mistakes as a result, but physically I felt good," Baumann states.
At this point, the Danes are in the lead, with last year's World Championship silver medallist Annika Langvad in the lead. Sina Frei is on the track for Switzerland. It soon becomes clear that Langvad has not had the best day and Sina Frei is able to take half a minute off the marathon world champion.

However, she was unable to improve her position. In the first part of the course, it is almost impossible to overtake her and in the second, she has to deal with a junior in front of her who immediately counterattacks when she attacks.
"That's a bit annoying," admits Frei, "I might have been a bit faster on the downhill, but it's difficult to stay on the back wheel without risking a fall myself."

18 seconds behind the Dutch, Sina Frei switches to Jolanda Neff. She improves the Swiss relay to third place, riding exactly the same speed as Anne Terpstra from the Netherlands and sending Nino Schurter onto the final lap with the same gap.
"It was very hard. You have to keep pushing even though you can't really do any more. But I got through without making any mistakes, so everything was fine," explains Neff.

Nino Schurter goes into the final lap with a certain amount of skepticism. He is up against Puck Pieterse, a junior from the Netherlands, but Keegan Swenson is in second place for the Americans, who are right behind him.
"18 seconds is a bit much, and a lot against an elite rider, so I was skeptical. But luckily I caught him on the first climb," says Nino Schurter about his lap. "I attacked on the second climb, he counterattacked and then I passed him again."

He immediately outsprinted Swenson in the following uphill serpentines and rode to the opening gold for his team.
"Personally, it doesn't mean that much to me, I do it more for the team than for myself. It's good for building team loyalty," says Nino Schurter.