Bild © Team – Egger

Georg Egger finishes fourth at the World Cup Final in Val di Sole, Max Brandl
with a solid 7th place
At his home World Cup, Nadir Colledani, the winner of the World Cup in
Albstadt, was already up and away after the first round. Also on his own,
Colledani was followed by overall World Cup Champion Martin Blums from
Latvia. Behind them three riders were fighting for third place: the winner of the
Worldcup in Nove Mesto Petter Fagerhaug from Norway, Sebastian
Carstensen Fini from Denmark, and Lexware rider Georg Egger from
Germany.

When Egger increased the speed in the fourth of six laps, Carstensen was not
able to follow. The duel with Fagerhaug was marked by a series of attacks in
the final lap. “In the uphills I had the feeling of being as strong as Petter, bt in
the technical sections, he was a little bit better”, Egger explained why he lost
the fight for his second podium of the season. On the finish line, Fagerhaug
was only three seconds in front of Egger, who had lost 1:53 on Colledani
(1:14:34).

“It was quite good today”, Egger summarized. “Obviously, I’d rather have
landed on the podium, but nevertheless, I enjoyed the race.” Most
importantly, he can now head off to the World Championships in Australia,
after his disappointing race at the European Championships. “It feels really
good to complete a good race before Australia.” His result also meant an
improvement in the Overall World Cup Ranking, where he finishes 4th now.
Max Brandl already emphasized that his focus is completely on the World
Championships before the race weekend. Accordingly, he was not in peak
shape for the race in Italy and expected it not be an easy race. “The start
was really hard for me. But after my hard training this didn’t come as a
surprise,” Brandl stated. “After the first lap, I had to recover a bit, but luckily I
only lost positions and not a lot of time.” During the race he almost caught up
with the group of Egger, but then fell back to eleventh place again. Whem
U23 European Champion Gioele Bertolini came from behind, “this boosted
my motivation like hell,” Brandl explained how he was able to finally finish on
7th place (+2:28), only one second behind the Italian. In the Overall U23
Worldcup, this meant 11th place and thus the qualification for the second
starting row at the first Worldcup in 2018. With respect to the upcoming
hightlight of the season, Brandl stated that “the performance makes me
confident for the World Championships”.

Luca Schwarzbauer came in 6:04 minutes behind Colledani on a 33rd place.
„That’s not worth anything, I know“, he self-critically stated after the race.
“The start was okay, but in the second lap I really suffered. Perhaps I worked
too hard in the previous weeks.” From then on, he was able to keep up with
two swiss riders and finish the race with a constant pace. “This is the good
thing, I can take home from Italy, but something like that must not happen
again,” Schwarzbauer summarized.

Additional Information on Team Lexware can be found on our website: www.lexware-mountainbike-team.de