In Brno, Czech Republic, this weekend, the young Swiss Olympic cross-country (XCO) rider Sina Frei became Under 23 Mountain Bike XCO European Champion for the fourth time – winning the race by a clear margin for a historic fourth year in a row! ” This was for me an emotional victory today!” she said on Saturday 27 July, acknowledging the astonishing achievement.
But Frei’s fourth title, won in 1hr 15min 14sec, was her toughest yet. She finished ‘only’ 14 seconds ahead of Austria’s Laura Stigger (2018 UCI World Champion in both XCO and road race, and European Champion in XCO) who fell, allowing an opportunity for the Swiss to capitalise – with French rider Loana Lecomte in third just 18 seconds back. It’s a much smaller margin than her previous victories.
"There were always small attacks, especially from me and from Laura," said Frei, “But there are no real gaps. But the climbs in the bike park Anthropos are not steep and heavy enough.”
Over the weekend, in the Men U23 XCO European Championships, Romania’s Vlad Dascalu won by a minute from Filippo Colombo of Switzerland and Max Brandle of Germany. In the Women Elite, Switzerland’s Jolanda Neff was a comfortable winner from Yana Belomoina of Ukraine and Germany’s Elisabeth Brandau, and in the Men Elite Mathieu Van der Poel of The Netherlands won clear from Florian Vogel of Switzerland, closely followed by 23-year-old Dutchman Milan Vader. In the team relay, the men and women of Switzerland were once again winners, with Frei part of the winning team as she has been for the successful 2017 and 2018 UCI XCO Team Relay World Championships!
Frei knows that her massive achievements – in 2019 and in the previous years – aren’t just down to her own talent and hard work but part of a bigger input from a number of people including her National Federation: “I would like to thank the whole @swisscyclingteam for their passion and professional support as always! #sogreatful”, she said on social media after the weekend’s action.
The latest achievement embodies Frei’s positive attitude, that she puts forward in her slogan: “Never give up, always look forward”. And while we don’t want to ignore her and look backwards, it’s important to put this win in the context of her other U23 victories and the quality of the competitors she’s eclipsed – and the distances she’s put between them and herself...
Last year it was in Graz, Austria, where Frei won with the margin of a full minute from Italy’s Marika Tovo and Spain’s Rocio Del Alba Garcia Martinez. In the previous European Championships, 2017, in Darfo Boario Terme, Italy, Frei beat her compatriot Alessandra Keller and the Netherlands’ Anne Tauber into second and third places respectively, also by almost a minute. That followed the young Swiss rider’s first U23 victory in Jönköping, Huskvarna, (Sweden), when it was the host nation’s Jenny Rissveds around a minute in arrears and Britain’s Evie Richards following in her tyre-tracks.
“In 2016, I became the youngest overall UCI World Cup winner of all time, European Champion, UCI World Champion runner-up and I also won the bronze medal at the UCI Team Relay World Championships.”
But even that wasn’t Sina’s first XCO European Championships title. It was in 2015, in Alpago, Italy, that she won the U19 European title… a country that has proved to be a happy hunting ground for the rider, which is a good omen as she prepares for the next UCI World Cup race at the Italian Val di Sole track, where Frei is now competing at Elite level, having stepped up from the U23 category where she was the overall UCI World Cup winner for the second time in 2018.
Will Frei and her fellow racers be fresh and ready for the UCI World Cup leg at the Daolasa di Commezzadura bike park with its new ‘Bear Forest’ section? And can they continue the form into the following part of the double-header in her Swiss homeland the following weekend, where Frei finished second to her close rival Keller in the U23 UCI World Championships there last year? With the UCI World Cup standings as exciting as ever in the various categories and no serious injuries reported, we hope all the racers are fit to compete and look forward to more great racing from the established leaders and the hard-charging emerging talent like four-time European Champion Frei.