After winning the title in Anzère in 2013, Nick Beer is once again living up to his role as favourite. At the same venue, he secured his eighth Swiss downhill championship title and is now traveling to the world championships in Hafjell, Norway, with an extra dose of motivation. Beer wins by just under five seconds ahead of elite novice Noel Niederberger, who will not be competing in the world title races. Lutz Weber completed the podium just behind him. The elite podium in Anzère also reflects the logical order that the three medal winners have established during the season.

The leather medal goes to the Frenchman Maxime Chapuis. He missed out on the bronze medal by just four tenths of a second. After winning silver last year, Felix Klee rides another strong race. This time it was enough for a good fifth and sixth place.

Siegenthaler's successful comeback
Emilie Siegenthaler also lives up to her role as favourite. Anzére is also the world-class rider's first race since suffering an injury at the iXS Cup in Lenzerheide. Siegenthaler proves that she has hardly lost any of her strength with her sixth title win, which she takes by a clear margin. There was a small surprise in the race for second place. In this, Alba Wunderlin narrowly edged out the favored Carina Cappellari for third place.

Lorraine Truong finished in fourth place, but with a clear gap to the bronze medal. This is the enduro specialist's second foray into downhill racing this year. Meanwhile, a still completely unknown rider provides a surprise. In her second year on a downhill bike, Alexandra Wohlgensinger makes it into the top five of the Swiss Championships in her first major downhill race.

Junior victory for Schär - weather luck until the last rider
Favourite win number three in the junior race. It is Mike Schär who has established himself as the fastest Swiss junior over the course of the season. At the Swiss Championships in Anzère, Schär underlines his role as favorite and wins by almost four seconds. However, Schär was by no means certain of victory, as he himself explains: "I'm super relieved and happy that I lived up to my role as "favorite". I've never been as nervous at a single race as I was today. I knew that my previous results would have to be enough, but if I had crashed it would have been over. That put a lot of pressure on me. Even during the race, my heart almost dropped into my pants every time I slipped slightly. So I'm all the happier that it worked out with the title after all - now I can go to the world championships without any pressure."

In the battle for the silver medal, things are getting tight again. Luca Beckmann is just four tenths of a second faster than co-favorite Myles Weber, who has to settle for the bronze award.

The Valais ski resort of Anzère is hosting the iXS Swiss Downhill Cup and the Swiss Championships for the second time. In contrast to last year's event, there will be no individual race for the national championships and the Swiss participants for the title race will be drawn from the Cup ranking list. This means that around 300 athletes from 12 nations will be competing. Nevertheless, the trend in the coming years will be towards national championships that are completely separate from the Cup.

With the event, the bad weather also travels to Anzère once again, giving the downhill riders the odd slippery ride. The heavy rainfall on Friday left the participants with mud even on the rainless Saturday. The resulting problem, however, is the fog, which rules out any air rescue and thus interrupts training. On Sunday, the fog returns briefly, but then the sun slowly breaks through and lasts until after Nick Beer's winning ride. Only then did the weather send rain clouds back into the region.

Wiriehorn and Bellwaldare two more classics in the Swiss iXS Downhill Series. The event on the Wiriehorn will take place in two weeks' time. The big final race of the season in Bellwald will take place from October 03 to 05.

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