Mathieu van der Poel immediately shows in Albstadt that he doesn't want to bake small rolls and wants to compete for victory with his excellent form. He quickly forms a leading duo with Nino Schurter, but they have company from behind: Mathias Flückiger closes the gap and the trio open up a lead of around 30 seconds on the pursuers. However, two decisive situations occur within a short space of time. First, Mathieu van der Poel slipped briefly before the "Albstadt Drop" and lost the gap.

Schurter is slightly faster on the next climb, but Flückiger feels faster than the world champion on the descent and wants to close the gap again. During his chase into the valley, he slipped once, jumped straight back on his bike and then dared to jump over a stone field, which no one else had dared to do. He hit his rear wheel and fell headfirst down the slope. "Fortunately, nothing serious happened, just bruises and grazes," explains Flückiger. But the race was over for him. One lap later, he retires.

Suddenly, Nino Schurter was alone in the lead and rode home confidently. "I was a bit nervous about Mathieu. I'd never seen him in a race and didn't know his strengths and weaknesses. When I attacked at the top, that probably put him under pressure. You can't afford to make mistakes here. Although it is technically easy, you slip away very quickly here," explains Schurter. Meanwhile, Schurter thinks it's great that van der Poel was at the front. "He's a super talent and it's cool when new people show up." Not entirely new, but new to these regions is Anton Cooper. The 2015 U23 World Champion would never have expected himself to finish third on the podium in Albstadt.

After a two-week injury break, Florian Vogel managed an excellent race, only finishing no further forward than eighth place (+2:28) due to a defect on the third lap. "Without that, it would probably have been enough for the podium (top 5). My preparation wasn't good at all because of the knee injury. Until two days ago, I didn't know if I would be able to ride at all. But things went much better than expected in the race," commented Vogel.

Martin Fanger is also back with a good 17th place, Andri Frischknecht can move up a few places to 20th after Nove Mesto and Matthias Stirnemann takes 21st place after catching up. Thomas Litscher suffers a rear wheel defect while in the chasing group and finishes 42nd