The late Muriel Furrer was remembered with a minute of silence earlier than the beginning of the elite ladies’s highway race on the World Championships, and her tragic loss of life was on the minds of each one of many individuals on a rain-soaked afternoon in Zurich.
Minutes after defending her rainbow jersey with a thunderous dash, Lotte Kopecky was ushered right into a tent close to the rostrum for her flash interview. The Belgian was requested to explain her speedy emotions on crossing the road, however her first ideas had been as a substitute for Furrer, who died on Friday after her crash in yesterday’s junior ladies’s highway race.
“It was form of disbelief, however to start with I need give my condolences to the household of Muriel,” Kopecky stated. “The minute of silence initially, seeing the Swiss riders crying, it’s one thing you simply don’t need to see. I feel it’s very exhausting for them.”
Requested if her world title was devoted to the late Furrer, a Swiss worldwide in highway, cyclocross and mountain bike, Kopecky nodded: “Sure, you possibly can say that.”
Kopecky’s phrases had been echoed by Noemi Rüegg, the best-placed of the house nation’s riders in eleventh. Earlier than the beginning, Rüegg and her 5 Swiss teammates had stood arm in arm on the entrance row of the peloton throughout a minute’s silence for the 18-year-old. “We are going to race with Muriel in our hearts, and we are going to see the way it goes,” Rüegg had stated earlier than going through into 154km of racing in miserably moist and chilly climate.
Regardless of the circumstances and the muted ambiance that now colors these World Championships, the house riders had been nonetheless cheered heartily by the crowds that lined the roadside. In a macabre however comprehensible method, the afternoon of racing offered a couple of hours of distraction from the tragedy that had occurred on these very roads.
“The temper on the Zürichberg was nice. I attempted to take pleasure in it and was in a position to absorb every part,” stated Rüegg, even when the shouts of encouragement and her personal sturdy efficiency had been solely a short lived respite from the prevailing temper.
“I wouldn’t have believed final 12 months that I might obtain one thing like that,” Rüegg stated. “However they had been two very troublesome days. I considered Muriel throughout the race. In the end, it was simply good to succeed in the end line and hug my household.”
Though Kopecky claimed the rainbow jersey, Elisa Longo Borghini (Italy) was arguably the day’s excellent performer, along with her aggression on the ultimate lap virtually carrying her to the world title.
Even after she had been reeled again in by favorite Demi Vollering (Netherlands), Longo Borghini summoned up the energy to dash to 3rd place. It was her fifth bronze medal in a highway race at a worldwide championship, after the 2012 and 2020 Worlds and the 2016 and 2020 Olympics.
Within the press room afterwards, Longo Borghini talked reporters by way of her techniques in appreciable element, however she additionally eloquently defined the obvious paradox of competing to win a motorcycle race whereas mourning the tragic lack of a younger life.
“I feel there was not one particular person within the peloton right now who wasn’t interested by yesterday and who wasn’t interested by the younger girl who handed away,” Longo Borghini stated. “However in the long run, after we are racing, we deal with the racing. Perhaps generally that’s not right, and possibly we must always assume extra about our well being and our life. However after we are athletes, we’re targeted on efficiency.”
“Initially right now, everyone was very conscious of the tragic loss. However as quickly because the race was on, we targeted on the race, and we raced. I feel racing right now was additionally a strategy to have a good time her life, the truth that she was a bike owner, that she had desires and he or she had targets, and that unluckily she handed away doing what she beloved.”
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