The late Muriel Furrer was remembered with a minute of silence earlier than the beginning of the elite girls’s highway race on the World Championships, and her tragic loss of life was on the minds of every 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 rapid emotions on crossing the road, however her first ideas had been as an alternative for Furrer, who died on Friday after her crash in the day gone by’s junior girls’s highway race.
“It was sort of disbelief, however to start with I would like give my condolences to the household of Muriel,” Kopecky mentioned. “The minute of silence at first, seeing the Swiss riders crying, it’s one thing you simply don’t need to see. I feel it’s very laborious for them.”
Asked if her world title was devoted to the late Furrer, a Swiss worldwide in highway, cyclocross and mountain bike, Kopecky nodded: “Yes, you may say that.”
Kopecky’s phrases had been echoed by Noemi Rüegg, the best-placed of the house nation’s riders in eleventh. Before 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 will race with Muriel in our hearts, and we’ll see the way it goes,” Rüegg had mentioned earlier than going through into 154km of racing in miserably moist and chilly climate.
Despite the situations 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 supplied 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 get pleasure from it and was in a position to absorb every little thing,” mentioned Rüegg, even when the shouts of encouragement and her personal robust efficiency had been solely a brief respite from the prevailing temper.
“I wouldn’t have believed final 12 months that I may obtain one thing like that,” Rüegg mentioned. “But they had been two very tough days. I considered Muriel through the race. Ultimately, it was simply good to achieve the end line and hug my household.”
Although 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.
In the press room afterwards, Longo Borghini talked reporters via 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 individual within the peloton at this time who wasn’t interested by yesterday and who wasn’t interested by the younger girl who handed away,” Longo Borghini mentioned. “But ultimately, after we are racing, we give attention to the racing. Maybe generally that’s not appropriate, and perhaps we must always suppose extra about our well being and our life. But after we are athletes, we’re targeted on efficiency.”
“At the beginning at this time, all people was very conscious of the tragic loss. But as quickly because the race was on, we targeted on the race, and we raced. I feel racing at this time was additionally a method to rejoice her life, the truth that she was a bike owner, that she had desires and she or he had objectives, and that unluckily she handed away doing what she cherished.”
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