Baar, 08.11.2022

A shower of medals for the artistic cyclists

Alessa Hotz once again secured the bronze medal at the Artistic Cycling World Championships in Ghent, while Flavia Schürmann, Carole Ledergerber, Vanessa Hotz and Stefanie Moos are now vice world champions in the team of four category.

The World Indoor Cycling Championships took place in Ghent, Belgium at the weekend. In the artistic cycling category, the artistic cyclists from Baar succeeded in qualifying for the World Championships in the single discipline with Alessa Hotz, and in the team of four discipline with Vanessa Hotz, Stefanie Moos, Carole Ledergerber and Flavia Schürmann.

On the very first day of the championship, Alessa Hotz secured a well-deserved final place among the best four athletes in the preliminary round, despite small uncertainties in her freestyle. The finals were then on the agenda for the five athletes from Baar on Saturday. Who would become world champion, and who could win a medal were the questions of the day.

Alessa Hotz opened the final of the women's individual artistic riders, and her freestyle showed an improvement compared to the previous round. She then had to wait, because the strong competition from Austria and Germany was still at the start. The Austrian Lorena Schneider showed a freestyle at a similar level to Alessa Hotz, with the two athletes eventually separated by 0.8 points, meaning that Alessa Hotz was able to advance into the medal rounds.

The two German riders showed solidly beautiful freestyle without any significant deductions and thereby took the first two positions, while Alessa Hotz won the bronze medal. This is already her second bronze medal in a row at a World Championship.

(From left) Vanessa Hotz, Flavia Schürmann, Alessa Hotz, Carole Ledergerber, Stefanie Moos. Front: National coach Patricia Kottmann.          Photo: Richi Reich/PD

Silver medal after exciting contest
Vanessa Hotz, Stefanie Moos, Carole Ledergerber and Flavia Schürmann started in the final round of the team of four category on the same evening. Hong Kong, Germany and Switzerland would share the medals between them in this category. Before the Swiss women started their runs, Hong Kong showed a clean freestyle. It was now time for the four women from Baar to deliver as perfect a freestyle as possible in order to challenge the strong competition from Germany.

They succeeded in this, after a small blunder, and achieved a score of 219.79, which meant that the Germans would have to present an almost perfect freestyle. The Germans withstood the pressure, however, and the Swiss women held onto the well-deserved silver medal place after an exciting contest.

The artistic cyclists (Kunstradfahrer) Baar are very proud of the silver medallists Vanessa Hotz, Stefanie Moos, Carole Ledergerber and Flavia Schürmann, as well as bronze medallist Alessa Hotz.