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Switzerland will hardly have a say in the cyclocross world title fights this weekend. It used to be different.
The cyclocross world championships take place in Hoogerheide (NED) from Friday to Sunday. The times when the Swiss were among the best in the world in this sport are long gone. The cycle races across fields and meadows were firmly in Swiss hands at the end of the 1970s. It’s been going down since then. Dieter Runkel won the last Swiss World Cup gold in 1995.
Christian Rocha, who knows the Swiss cycling scene and has organized cyclo-cross races for many years, knows the reasons for this bear market: “Swiss riders have very little international ambition.” You need a good team, you don’t have that, especially with the women.
Association wants broad education
Rocha is convinced that the Swiss Cycling Association can do a lot more to promote cross-country cycling. However, Patrick Müller, head of competitive sports at Swiss Cycling, declines: “We want to train the athletes on a broad basis and the financial support is provided by the Olympic sports – cyclocross is not one of them.”
And that is precisely why nothing will change in the association structures, even if one is aware that there is still a lot of room for improvement at Swiss Cycling in terms of training offers in cyclocross.