Milatz wins Lugano round of Swiss Cup

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Moritz Milatz (BMC) and Kathrin Stirnemann (Sabine Spitz Haibike) won the BMC Swiss Cup in Lugano/Tesserete on Sunday. Milatz's win came after he finished second last year behind Nino Schurter. This year, he finished ahead of marathon world champion Christoph Sauser (Specialized) and Martin Fanger (Giant Swiss). In the women's race, Stirnemann surprised many to take her first elite victory.

The forecasts had not been good, but the race was held in glorious weather nonetheless. It had rained overnight, which made the course soaked and slippery, but riders generally praised the technically demanding course.

Lukas Flückiger (Trek World Racing) suffered a puncture early in the men's six-lap race and dropped back to 12th. German champion Milatz set the pace from the start with BMC teammate Patrick Gallati.

"This race naturally fell to me," said Milatz, who noticed that Gallati struggled to follow him. "I had to go, I could not wait for Patrick, so that others did not get closer."

Behind Milatz, Sauser and Fanger fought for second place while Lukas Flückiger tried to make up ground.

In the last two laps, Milatz took fewer risks and rode safely to his win. "This is important for the team and the Cup," said Milatz. "A successful test of my form too. Tactically, it was a good choice to use my full suspension bike on this course."

Sauser was happy with the course although he wished he might have picked some different tires. "In the last lap, I crashed three times since I was using my dry tires. I can be happy with the race."

The best U23 rider Bryan Falaschi (Prof-Raiffeisen-CCL), who finished ahead of former junior Swiss champion Mirco Widmer and Lars Forster.

Celebrating her first-ever elite women's victory, Kathrin Stirnemann had gone to the front early and set a blistering pace. In the end, she had 47 seconds on Marielle Saner-Guinchard (Bikepark.ch) and a half a minute on Esther Süss (iXS-Wheeler).

"I'm obviously very happy and this gives further confidence for the next race," said Stirnemann.

The U23 competition was won by Michelle Hediger (Fischer-BMC), who placed ahead of last year's junior champion Jolanda Neff (iXS-Wheeler),  who was sixth in her first elite race in Switzerland.

"Things are looking up," said Neff, who had struggled with health problems.

Andrea Waldis (VC Gersau / Colnago) clearly won the junior women's race while Swiss champion Dominik Zumstein (Scott Swisspower) took the junior men's race. Florian Chenaux (VC Fribourg/ Cycles Pache) won the amateur/masters contest.

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