Kulhavy wins Lenzerheide World Cup

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Swiss hopes of victory on home soil were dashed on Sunday, at Round 3 of the Cross-country series of the UCI Mountain Bike World Cup presented by Shimano in Lenzerheide, when Jaroslav Kulhavy (Specialized) took his second win of the season. Kulhavy regains the men's lead from Julien Absalon (BMC) with his second win of the series.

The men's race was expected to be a three-way battle between Kulhavy, winner of the opening round, World Cup leader and Round 2 winner Absalon and Swiss favourite Nino Schurter (Scott-Odlo).

That was the way it initially played out, with Schurter getting his usual fast start and the other two bridging up to him. Florian Vogel (Focus XC) and Mathias Fluckiger (Stoeckli) were also in the front group after the first lap, but then Schurter attacked again, dropping Fluckiger from the group, and Vogel crashed, leaving just three at the front.

Kulhavy and Schurter were doing the pacemaking, with Absalon losing ground on the descents but making much of it back on the climbs. However, the World Cup leader and world champion was gradually losing a few seconds every lap, and it looked like he would have to settle for third, until Lap 6, when both Absalon and Schurter had rear wheel flats.

Absalon suffered his puncture at the far end of the course from the tech zone, dropping him to 12th before he was able to get a wheel change. Schurter's flat was just before the tech zone, and he was 17 seconds down by the end of the lap after a quick change, but he could not make up ground on the 2012 Olympic champion and, in fact, lost time over the remaining two laps to finish 33 seconds back for his third consecutive second place result.

Ondrej Cink (Multivan Merida), the 2012 Under-23 world champion, had caught Absalon just as he flatted and took third, ahead of Fluckiger and Maxime Marotte (BH-SR Suntour-KMC). Absalon managed to recover to ninth.

"When Nino flatted I just kept my own tempo," explained Kulhavy. "It wasn't so good for the spectators, with Nino being at home here, so that was too bad, but I'm really satisfied with my performance here, because it was a really hard race with nowhere to rest. I had a really bad year last season, but I'm at the top again, I'm healthy, and it's really great."

With his second victory, Kulhavy moves back into the leader's jersey with 660 points. Schurter remains in second with 600 points and Absalon drops to third with 510 points.

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