Cyclocross World Championship: Hanka Kupfernagel wins gold medal despite fall!
Hanka Kupfernagel had travelled to the World Championship in Treviso with a clear statement: I want to be World Champion again. This statement was not just expedient optimism, as she proved impressively. Wish and reality became one. With her fourth World Championship title in cyclocross the Focus athlete continued her latest series of victories.
The weather was sunny as the 33-year-old Focus athlete won her fourth world champion title, after the years 2000, 2001 and 2005. At the world championship in the North Italian town of Treviso, the 33-year-old time-trial world champion beat the Dutchwoman Marianne Vos and Laurence Leboucher from France into second and third place. From the second lap she set the pace from the front, shaking off all competitors. Title-defender Maryline Salvetat from France was only fifth.
At the beginning of the women’s race, which started punctually at 11:00, the Focus athlete - who looked very concentrated at the start - held back somewhat, even leaving some distance to the front and was the fourth to pass the start-finish line after the first lap. Then in the second lap Hanka then took the lead in a group of five containing all the title contenders.
In the third lap Kupfernagel still had to cope with a little fall, but this could no longer stop her on the way to her fourth world championship title. “I was still afraid that it would perhaps not be enough”, breathed Kupfernagel only on the last few metres.
“It was an extremely exciting race, the surface changed from lap to lap which made the race much more difficult technically. Over the route speakers I was always hearing that Leboucher and Vos were behind me. So I always gave it everything on the straight sections of the route, because I was afraid that they would still catch me up from behind.” She whipped her Focus Cross cycle powerfully further in front, and only the Frenchwoman Ferrier-Bruneau could keep up with this pace. The Frenchwoman was particularly strong on the uphill stretches, and Hanka could not shake her off at first.
At the end of the third lap Hanka Kupfernagel fought her way to a lead of about 200 metres, which remained in the course of the following lap and only melted away briefly due to a wheel change. She thus gained a buffer of ten seconds again between herself and the Frenchwoman, who fought for her chance in front of the Dutchwoman Marianne Vos. In the second-to-last of the total of six laps, Hanka allowed herself another minor riding mistake, but this was no longer of decisive importance, as her lead had by that point grown to twelve seconds.
Behind Hanka, who continued powering onward, the French Bruneau was caught up by Vos and Leboucher. Cheered on by her partner and trainer Mike Kluge, Kupfernagel was genuinely pedalling her heart out – above all because behind her Marianne Vos had taken up pursuit and was coming up powerfully. On the home stretch the German finally enjoyed her triumph and rode to her fourth gold medal at the cyclocross world championships. Only on the last curve did I believe that I was becoming world champion, said Kupfernagel joyfully after the home straight.