Spain’s Emilio Arellano created the upset of the final day of the UCI Indoor Cycling World Championships in Bremen, Germany, beating the pre-competition favourite to win the Single Men artistic cycling. In the Women’s Pairs, Germany’s Henry Kirst and Antonia Bärk won the competition in their first appearance at this level of competition. Germany won both the Men’s and Women’s cycle-ball titles.
Artistic cycling Single Men: Arellano defeats Kohl
The biggest surprise of the 2024 UCI Indoor Cycling World Championships was the defeat of seven-time artistic cycling Single Men UCI World Champion Lukas Kohl.
Unbeaten for the last eight years, Kohl (Kirchehrenbach) had dominated the preliminary round in Bremen but under-performed in the final. The man to break Kohl’s winning streak – and a nearly 20-year German dominance - was Emilio Arellano, of Spain. After winning three successive bronze medals, Arellano was able to celebrate gold and the UCI rainbow jersey thanks to a near-perfect performance that scored him 198.08 points.
“I have believed in the last few months that it is possible to win the title, but never 100 percent,” said Arellano, who was born and lives in Germany, and is trained by his father José. “Since I started artistic cycling at the age of four, the UCI World Champion title has been my biggest dream,” Arellano continued.
His father, with two UCI World Championships silver medals (1999 and 2001), has always been his role model: “A big thank you to my dad, who has been with me for 17 years, and to everyone else who has supported me so far.”
Silver went to Philipp-Thies Rapp (Tailfingen/GER) for the third time in a row. Kohl had to settle for bronze. Hungarian Csaba Varga finished fourth.
Artistic cycling Women Pairs: Kirst and Bärk ‘simply unbelievable’
Henny Kirst and Antonia Bärk (Bonn-Duisdorf/GER) were incredulous after winning the Women Pairs competition (128.60 points ) at their first participation in a UCI World Championships.
“When we were young, we were never among the top riders,” said Kirst. “But we had coaches then and now who believed in us and accompanied us on our way. To be UCI World Champions is simply unbelievable."
Also competing in their first UCI World Championships, Kim Leah Schlüter and Nele Jodeleit (Knetterheide/GER) won silver.
The battle for bronze was between two Swiss pairs and finally went the way of Simona Lucca and Larissa Tanner (Stäfa). Jeannine Graf and Nadine Zuberbühler (Amriswil), took fourth place for the last competition of their competitive careers.
Women's cycle-ball: Germany retain the title
Germany remains Women cycle-ball UCI World Champion but with a new team: Judith Wolf and Danielle Holzer (Hofen/Prechtal) won the final against the Swiss team, Sava Baumann and Chiara Dotoli, 6-2 in their UCI World Championship debut.
“It's crazy, definitely a dream,” the pair agreed. “We used to play against each other a lot. The fact that we were now able to play together at a UCI Indoor Cycling World Championships and win the title straight away is just unbelievable.”
A close match for the bronze medal saw Czechia’s Veronika Kripnerova and Blanka Adamova beat the Japanese duo of Nana Yamashita and Saki Tanaka 3-2.
Men's cycle-ball: Kopp and Mlady win for Germany
The new UCI World Champions in men’s cycle-ball are two former UCI World Champions who had won their previous titles with other partners. Raphael Kopp (formerly RVS Obernfeld, and 2023 UCI World Champion) and Bernd Mlady (RMC Stein, and 2017 / 2021 UCI World Champion) had already collected three gold medals between them. Now came the first joint triumph for the newly formed team from Germany.
In the final, Kopp and Mlady beat the 2022 UCI World Champions, Austria’s Patrick Schnetzer and Stefan Feuerstein (Dornbirn), 6-3.
“We were in the Bremen Arena for the first time in December 2023 to shoot a promo video for the 2024 UCI World Championships,” said goalkeeper Kopp. “After that, it was clear to us that we had to come here and do everything we could to make it happen.”
Mlady added: “It's absolutely insane what the atmosphere in Bremen has been like over the past three days. A whole year of hard work went into our victory. We did a lot and accepted a lot. Without the support of our family and friends, this would never have been possible. And it all paid off.”
In the match for third place, Switzerland beat France 3-0, the latter team playing with a substitute due to injury sustained by their goalkeeper in the semifinal.
In the relegation match, Japan beat the winners of the B Division Slovakia to retain their place in the league with the best five nations: Germany, Austria, Switzerland, France and Czechia.