Day nine at the 2023 UCI Cycling World Championships was Day one for indoor cycling, with the first rainbow jersey going to Germany, in artistic cycling.
The action unfolded at the Emirates Arena in Glasgow, Scotland, with medals in the Pair Women and qualifications in other artistic cycling categories as well as cycle-ball. The day delivered positive outcomes for Germany, Austria and Switzerland.
Pair Women: comeback UCI World Champions
In artistic cycling’s pair women, two pairs from Germany and one each from Switzerland and Austria had qualified for the Final 4 in the preliminary round.
Silver medalists from last year’s UCI Indoor Cycling World Championships in Gent, Belgium, Selina Marquardt and Helen Vordermeier were the last starters, and title favourites. The 2021 UCI World Champions from Germany had set out for Scotland with a clear mission: their last appearance together was to end with them winning back the rainbow jerseys before retiring from competition.
However, the duo had recently come to understand that success is not a foregone conclusion: at this year’s German Championships, they only finished third.
“We just wanted to get through Glasgow without making any mistakes,” they said, with relief after their presentation.
It wasn't perfect, but the pair got through their five-minute freestyle with handstands and pirouettes and exercises riding backwards on the rear wheel.
In the end, the two even had 20 seconds left for the final element, the handlebar stand rotation. And here, too, they kept their nerve and were rewarded with 136.75 points and the prestigious title of UCI World Champions.
First UCI World Champions of Artistic Cycling 🥇
— UCI (@UCI_cycling) August 11, 2023
Germany 🇩🇪 are triumphant in the Pair event ahead of Austria and Switzerland#GlasgowScotland2023 pic.twitter.com/xjAi9arzda
Austria and Switzerland claim silver and bronze
The runners-up, Svenja Bachmann and Rosa Kopf from Austria, were just as overjoyed. After four successive bronze medals at UCI World Championships, their silver felt like they had succeeded with flying colours. In the final, the two set a new Austrian record of 133.10 points.
“We were far too nervous before the preliminary round, but now we could have performed again after the final,” they said, euphoric with their result as runners-up.
Equally happy were Sina Bäggli and Julia Hämmerli from Switzerland, fourth in the preliminary round. However, they rose to the occasion in the Emirates Arena to register a new personal best of 118.91 points.
In doing so, they beat the third-best qualifiers Jessie Hasmüller and Annice Niedermayer, of Germany, who paid for a mistake shortly before the end of their programme.
Cycle-ball action under way
In the cycle-ball competition, the six best nations competed in League A, with Belgium, Germany, Switzerland and Czechia entering with new teams.
Defending UCI World Champions Austria (Patrick Schnetzer and his new partner Stefan Feuerstein) beat the Czech Republic 7-4, Germany beat France (4-2) and Switzerland got the better of Belgium (2-1)
The day’s League B matches featured the predicted duel between Japan and Romania, returning to the UCI World Championships after an absence of 11 years.
After four games each, the Romanian duo Dorian Doroftei and Mircea Tric (who are based in Leimen, Germany), led with a maximum possible 12 points, ahead of Japan (10). The two teams will play off tomorrow for the group victory.