Schurter claims Lenzerheide World Cup win

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Nino Schurter (Scott-SRAM) extended his perfect season with his fourth straight World Cup win on Sunday in Lenzerheide, Switzerland.

The Lenzerheide circuit, while not at as high an altitude as Andorra last weekend, is still nearly 1500 metres above sea level. The 4.2 kilometre circuit has one longer opening climb and a series of short steep climbs, combined with numerous rough and rooty forest sections. Heavy rain the night before made the wooded sections almost unrideable in places, and the UCI made the unusual decision of cutting a lap from the Men's and Women's races.

In the Elite Men's race, the continuing absence of Schurter's usual rival Julien Absalon (BMC) due to a broken collarbone has opened the door to multiple rivals, although Schurter has thus far proven untouchable. Former cyclo-cross world champion Mathieu van der Poel pushed Schurter in the first two rounds, but struggled in the altitude at Andorra, and it proved to be the same situation here, with the Dutch rider starting strong and taking the race to Schurter before fading in the latter half of the race to finish tenth.

"It's amazing to win back home," said Schurter. "The crowd was amazing ... there were so many people out there. I was really struggling with the conditions at the beginning, it was super slippery and I didn't have the best tires on. So I struggled to follow Mathieu [van der Poel], who's used to the mud. Then it dried out a bit and I got better, but it was really tough and I suffered all the way through the race. I saw Jaro coming up on the second last lap, and he was coming very quick ... I was lucky it was one lap shorter!"

Maxime Marotte (Cannondale Factory) was the most consistent rival to Schurter for most of the race, but a couple of others made their way up to the leaders in the final laps. Russian Anton Sintsov (JBG-2 Pro) joined Schurter and Marotte at the midway mark, and even attacked on the fifth lap, eventually finishing third, the best result ever for a Russian man.

However, 2012 Olympic champion Jaroslav Kulhavy (Specialized), who has suffered injury and illness in the first part of the season, started from back in the third row and stormed up through the field, setting the fastest splits for the final four laps. Starting the last lap, he was in fourth and 24 seconds back. He went straight by Marotte and Sintsov on the first main climb and was only 9 seconds back of Schurter with half a lap to go, eventually coming across the finish line only three seconds down.

"It was an incredible race," agreed Kulhavy. "I had a bad start - after the start there was a big crash and I lost a lot of time. So I went step by step to fight back. I like this course, I like the technical sections with the roots and the rocks. Maybe I just needed eight laps! This World Cup season has been really bad for me until now, because I had crash before Nove Mesto and a problem with my back and wrist so I couldn't race normally, and in Andorra I was sick, so I'm happy to have a great race today finally."

In the overall standings, Schurter has a perfect 1000 points, with Marotte a distant second at 560 points. Schurter needs only to finish 22nd or better in one of the two remaining rounds to lock up the title. 

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