Albstadt World Cup: Schurter holds off van der Poel for the win

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Pre-race, there was considerable speculation as to how multi-time cyclo-cross world champion Mathieu van der Poel (Netherlands) would fare, after finishing eighth a week earlier in the first round. The race quickly became a battle between Round 1 winner and world champion Nino Schurter (Scott-SRAM) and van der Poel. In the early laps the pair were joined at the front by Matthias Fluckiger (Radon Factory) until he crashed and had to abandon the race. van der Poel also crashed but was able to catch up to Schurter temporarily, until the Swiss rider attacked on the fourth lap and steadily pulled away to record his 22nd World Cup win. Anton Cooper (Trek Factory) finished third.

"I made a stupid mistake," admitted van der Poel, "and crashed pretty hard [on Lap 3]. I lost contact with the [front] group and hurt my knee a little bit. It was hard to get my pace back on. I'm very happy with the race, only a bit disappointed with the stupid mistake; otherwise it was a nice battle with Nino. I'm really starting to like it mountain biking, especially when you can start from the first row; I enjoyed it a lot today."

Schurter leads the men's standings with a perfect 500 points, followed by David Valero (MMR Factory) at 350 and van der Poel at 310 points.

"It is a tough course and the conditions today were brutally hot," said Schurter. "It was a hard fight with van der Poel. I got a bit nervous when he [van der Poel] was at the front. I have never raced with him really and this was the first time I saw him race. It is always a bit strange when you have someone with you that you don't know; where his strengths or weaknesses are. I was glad when I was finally able to drop him."

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