Schurter wins Gara d'apertura MTB Monte Tamaro ahead of Absalon
Mitterbauer clinches women's victory
One week before the first race of the Swiss cross country national racing series, a star-stacked field lined up for the season opener at the foot of Monte Tamaro. Nino Schurter and Lisa Mitterbauer won the elite men's and women's races.
"Over the winter, I put in a lot more training hours and especially more basic and long distance training in order to prevail at the Cape Epic and in my road experiences," said Schurter. "The GP Apertura was the perfect warm-up for South Africa."
The weather could have hardly been any better at the season-opening race: The first early summer day in the Ticino region brought with it plenty of sunshine and temperatures ideally suited for racing.
The list of starters in the men's race was quite spectacular as well: Apart from Schurter and Julien Absalon, a lot more of mountain biking's big names were competing in Rivera. The circuit was technically very demanding, featured a number of steep but not overly long climbs and offered hardly any opportunity for recovery.
Right from the start, world champion and World Cup overall winner Schurter was in charge of things. He set off on his own, and Thomas Litscher was the only rider who managed to get back on Schurter's wheel, going deep on the longest climb of the course.
"Even if I had to pay for that effort later on, it was not for nothing as I managed to get quite an advantage on Florian Vogel that way," said Litscher. "And on top of that I still need to get more race-hardened, and where to do that any better than against such a stacked field in Switzerland?"
Absalon eventually overtook Litscher for second place.
"The track was technically demanding with a lot of switchbacks and speed changes," said Schurter. "I'm happy to see that the change in my preparation did not have any bad influence on my agility and power."
In the elite women's race, Mitterbauer beat Forchini and Koba.
Full Results
# | Rider Name (Country) Team | Result |
---|---|---|
1 | Nino Schurter (Swi) | 1:27:07 |
2 | Julien Absalon (Fra) | 0:00:36 |
3 | Thomas Litscher (Swi) | 0:01:42 |
4 | Florian Vogel (Swi) | 0:02:16 |
5 | Moritz Milatz (Ger) | 0:02:35 |
6 | Kohei Yamamoto (Jpn) | 0:03:18 |
7 | Martin Gujan (Swi) | 0:05:12 |
8 | Stéphane Tempier (Fra) | 0:05:34 |
9 | Markus Bauer (Ger) | 0:06:16 |
10 | Florian Chenaux (Swi) | 0:06:23 |
11 | Reto Indergand (Swi) | 0:07:05 |
12 | Lukas Flückiger (Swi) | 0:07:05 |
13 | Andri Frischknecht (Swi) | 0:07:45 |
14 | Pascal Meyer (Swi) | 0:08:30 |
15 | Michael Hutter (Swi) | 0:08:51 |
16 | Michael Stünzi (Swi) | 0:09:05 |
17 | Emilien Barben (Swi) | 0:09:15 |
18 | Giancarlo Sax (Swi) | 0:10:22 |
19 | Fabian Paumann (Swi) | 0:10:36 |
20 | Nicola Rohrbach (Swi) | 0:10:58 |
21 | Marcel Wildhaber (Swi) | 0:11:07 |
22 | Claude Koster (Swi) | 0:11:32 |
23 | Bryan Allemann (Swi) | 0:12:25 |
24 | Ulisse Fieschi (Swi) | 0:14:01 |
25 | Nicolas Fischer (Swi) | 0:14:14 |
26 | Dylan Page (Swi) | 0:14:25 |
27 | Daniel Eymann (Swi) | 0:15:09 |
28 | Bruno Vitali (Swi) | Row 27 - Cell 2 |
29 | Nick Albrecht (Swi) | Row 28 - Cell 2 |
30 | Joel Koller (Swi) | Row 29 - Cell 2 |
31 | Joseph De Poortere Emelien (Fra) | Row 30 - Cell 2 |
32 | Marc Stutzmann (Swi) | Row 31 - Cell 2 |
33 | Florian Thie (Swi) | Row 32 - Cell 2 |
34 | Sylvain Engelmann (Swi) | Row 33 - Cell 2 |
35 | Corentin Cousteur (Fra) | Row 34 - Cell 2 |
36 | Victor Pinthon (Fra) | Row 35 - Cell 2 |
37 | Philipp Hediger (Swi) | Row 36 - Cell 2 |
38 | Jan Schaer (Swi) | Row 37 - Cell 2 |
39 | Jeremias Marti (Swi) | Row 38 - Cell 2 |
40 | Yoshitaka Nakahara (Jpn) | Row 39 - Cell 2 |
41 | Vincent Sibille (Fra) | Row 40 - Cell 2 |
42 | Kohei Maeda (Jpn) | Row 41 - Cell 2 |
43 | Yves Albrecht (Swi) | Row 42 - Cell 2 |
44 | Buchler Fabian (Swi) | Row 43 - Cell 2 |
# | Rider Name (Country) Team | Result |
---|---|---|
1 | Lisa Mitterbauer (Aut) | 1:38:35 |
2 | Ramona Forchini (Swi) | 0:06:34 |
3 | Sarah Koba (Swi) | 0:08:39 |
4 | Sofia Pezzatti (Swi) | 0:09:56 |
5 | Linda Indergand (Swi) | 0:10:48 |
6 | Franziska Brun (Swi) | 0:17:50 |
7 | Chantal Eheim (Swi) | 0:03:15 |
8 | Romaine Wenger (Swi) | 0:05:00 |
9 | Chrystelle Baumann (Swi) | Row 8 - Cell 2 |
10 | Mallory Barth (Swi) | Row 9 - Cell 2 |

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