Finally!
Nino Schurter breaks the all-time XCO World Cup win record after a four-year quest filled with near-misses
One of the joys of competitive sports is that they are often unpredictable and chaotic, but there are those rare times when you swear the outcomes were written by a Hollywood scriptwriter.
Michael Jordan hitting the game-winning shot against the Jazz in his last game as a Chicago Bull; the 1980 U.S. Olympic Hockey Team beating the USSR on home soil in the Miracle on Ice; the 2004 Boston Red Sox becoming the first-ever baseball team to come back from a 3-0 deficit against the Yankees; these are just a few examples of sports finishes that were ripped straight from a Hollywood.
Last year’s World Cup at Lenzerheide, Switzerland, was seemingly one of those moments that was tailor-made for a Hollywood ending. After finally tying Julian Absalon’s record for career World Cup XCO wins earlier in the season in Brazil, Nino Schurter had a chance to break the record at his home course in Lenzerheide. When Schurter got into a battle with Mathias Fluckiger deep into the race, it looked like the perfect ending to Schurter’s quest was going to manifest itself.
Unfortunately, fate had other plans for the mountain biking legend. An off-camera crash with the Swiss Robin to Schurter’s Batman denied Schurter and mountain biking fans that beautiful and poetic moment.
The run-in at Lenzerheide was not Schurter’s only near-miss during his quest for the all-time World Cup win record.
Schurter pulled to within one win of Absalon’s record in July 2019 when he won at Vallnord and Les Gets on back-to-back weekends. He had a shot to tie the record at Lenzerheide a month later, but he ran into the buzzsaw that was 2019 MTB Mathieu van der Poel and finished 2nd.
Following a disappointing 2020 fortnight of mountain bike racing, Schurter had a golden opportunity to tie the record at the 2021 season opener in Albstadt (thanks in part to Tom Pidcock starting way, way back in the field), but he lost an epic last-lap battle against Victor Koretzky. He had a similar opportunity to tie the record at home at Lenzerheide later that summer, but he again came up 2 seconds short against Koretzky.
Given his history of near-misses, when Schurter out-sprinted Maxime Marotte and Vlad Dascalu to win the 2022 season-opener in Petropolis it was probably as much a relief as it was a triumph for the 10-time World Champion. Sure tying the record an ocean away instead of an hour from his hometown was not sweet sports poetry, but again, it is only a rare occasion when the stars of the sports universe align.
Fortunately for Schurter, Lenzerheide was on the schedule again for the 2023 UCI XCO World Cup as the second stop of the summer-long series. And with Tom Pidcock not in attendance, the stage was certainly set for Schurter to finally complete his four-year-long quest to achieve sports divinity at home in Lenzerheide.
One of the toughest challenges Schurter has faced in recent years has come from countryman Mathias Fluckiger. Fluckiger is one of those athletes who drew the unfortunate lot of having his career coincide with a legend like Schurter, but he has given Schurter hell the last two seasons, including a near win at 2021 Worlds, defeating Schurter at Leogang last summer, and of course, the incident.
Fluckiger had a disappointing race at Nove Mesto, but he bounced back by winning Swiss Nationals—with Schurter absent—and Lenzerheide is a home-country race for him as well. Unfortunately, Fluckiger suffered a hand injury during training this week, but he still gutted out the start on Sunday. Fluckiger’s misfortune was just another small point in favor of the Schurter Lenzerheide dream storyline.
Sunday’s Elite Men’s XCO race started as Elite Men’s XCO races seem to do these days—with German powerhouse Luca Schwarzbauer on the front, riding hard. Schwarzbauer led the entire rather long prologue lap and a group of 10+ riders strung out behind him.
There are all those sayings that you’re either the hunt or the hunted, the hammer or the nail, or whatever else. Schurter tipped his hand early that on his home course, with the all-time World Cup wins record on the line, he was going to be the … what’s the fiercest Swiss animal? [Ed. Note: According to the internet, the most dangerous animal in Switzerland is the asp viper]. Schurter was going to be the asp viper.
The Lenzerheide course features one main climb that starts on pavement and then transitions to a dirt section. Schurter went to the front at the beginning of the climb in the first proper lap and immediately set a blistering pace up the ascent and ensuing descent. The first rider to grab his wheel was Fluckiger, perhaps indicating that the other Swiss rider was going to gut it out and maybe offer another epic challenge to Schurter’s quest for mountain bike immortality.
The end result of Schurter’s Lap 1 quarter-hour of power was a lead group that dwindled to Schurter, Fluckiger, Schwarzbauer, Vital Albin, and Jordan Sarrou. Pierre De Froidmont, Alan Hatherly, and Daniele Braidot were also close behind in the mix.
In the 2nd of 6 proper laps, the lead group got a bit of a shakeup. On the opening climb, Schurter relinquished control to Albin momentarily before retaking the lead spot to lead into the descent. As the lap progressed, Albin and Schwarzbauer dropped off Schurter’s pace, and Hatherly and Braidot moved up to take their places, again making it a lead group of five.
Generally speaking, in bike racing, you want to be in the best position to respond when things happen or avoid race-altering crashes or mistakes. The dilemma riders face is that always battling for position is stressful and taxing, but for large parts of races, positioning in a group does not necessarily matter. Learning where and when to battle for position is part of what makes a great bike racer.
Schurter got caught on the wrong side of the great positioning dilemma in the World Cup season-opener at Nove Mesto when Fluckiger biffed it on the slick, uphill rock garden. Schurter and Fluckiger’s dismounts sent Pidcock, Schwarzbauer, and Josh Dubau off the front, and the two Swiss riders would never again make contact with the front.
A similar incident occurred in the lead group on Sunday, but this time Schurter’s hammer-like riding put him in the perfect position to capitalize.
Probably the toughest part of the opening climb was when the pavement gives way to a right turn onto a steep dirt kicker. Shortly before the dirt transition, Sarrou and Schurter were riding side-by-side at the front of the lead selection of five. Perhaps sensing what was to happen next—or just wanting a good shot at leading the descent again, IDK—Schurter rose out of the saddle and attacked. Fluckiger was again the first to respond, and Sarrou fell back into 3rd.
On the right-hand turn, Sarrou went wider to the left while Braidot tried to get cheeky and cut in on the right to take the turn at a sharp angle. The move did not work, and Braidot biffed the turn, falling off his bike and running into Sarrou. As the two scrambled to remount, Schurter and Fluckiger were off the front with a gap.
Schurter then did what any self-respecting, 33-World-Cup-winning, 10-time-world-champion, off-road racer would do: he attacked.
And to Fluckiger’s credit, he initially stuck right on Schurter’s wheel. And for a hot second, it looked like fans might be treated to a legendary battle between the two Swiss riders that would serve as a fitting stand-in for 2022’s aborted battle between the two Swiss stars.
However, the end result of Sunday’s race would prove much more anticlimactic.
For those of us watching at home, while the broadcast was showing riveting, slo-mo footage of the other Braidot crashing, Fluckiger completely fell off Schurter’s pace and then just continued to fall back. Sarrou stepped up in his stead to chase a 7-second deficit at the midway point of the race. Hatherly and Braidot sat 14 seconds off the lead.
Buoyed by the cheers of the hometown crowd and the knowledge that he had completely bossed the race up to that point, Schurter left nothing to chance in Lap 4. He extended his lead out to 10 seconds at the top of the big climb and then continued to gain time on the descents back down to the low part of the course. His lead was at 19 seconds with 2 laps to go.
The last two laps were more a coronation than a bike race. Schurter’s wire-to-wire dominance on Sunday meant there would be no “Do you believe in miracles?” chill moments, but it was still a legendary performance from a legendary bike racer at a venue where he wanted more than anything to set a record that will not be touched for decades if not scores of decades.
“There’s definitely no better place than here,” Schurter said in his post-race interview. “It took me a long time for this 34th win. I was really really looking forward to this race, to race here one last time in Lenzerheide it was already quite emotional for me to know it’s probably going to be my last race here. I wanted to give it my all and get this win here.”
Listening to this interview reminded me of sitting in my hotel room after Reno Nationals in 2018 transcribing Dave Mable’s interview with Jeremy Powers after his epic battle with Stephen Hyde in the Elite Men’s championship. In that interview, Powers hinted that it might be his last Nationals.
I probably ran into Dave’s room, yelling, “Wuhhhhhhh, did JPows just retire?”
I feel like a similar thing happened on the MTB Media Pit group chat. “Did Nino just announce his retirement???”
Now, to be fair, Schurter just turned 37 and Father Time stands undefeated. If there is one silver lining for folks who cannot fathom a world where Nino Schurter is not racing—and usually wearing the rainbow stripes—Lenzerheide has announced it will not be hosting a World Cup in 2024 because Valais, Switzerland, is hosting the 2025 World Championships, and thus it will be the Swiss venue to host a World Cup in 2024.
With the Olympics scheduled to take place in 2024, I feel like the most likely outcome is a 2024 Nino Retirement Tour, but it may also be the case that we witnessed a low-key retirement announcement from the greatest to ever play the sport of mountain biking.
Whether he retires soon or a year from now, after four years of being close, Schurter finally got the record. And to do it in Lenzerheide was that bit of sports poetry we all love to see.
Nice write up. ( Although I note a lack of jokes puns etc - was this due to the serious nature of Nino’s achievement ? ) IDK.. still distracted by the new production which seems to have swapped cameras and production for pointless presenters. Starting to be like old school CX coverage where after the lead is established that’s all you see.