Laurens Sweeck won the first race of the European cyclocross season in Baden/Switzerland riding his STEVENS Super Prestige. The U23 runner-up World Champion of team Era-Murprotec – formerly Corendon-Kwadro – outsprinted Philipp Walsleben of team BKCP-Corendon, the second team to be outfitted by STEVENS with the Super Prestige.

Until the final lap it looked as if Philipp Walsleben, German National Champion of 2014 was the winner. In the penultimate lap he had ridden away from Sweeeck and Francis Mourey (France). Yet, Sweeck was able to close the gap in the final lap and in the end won the race with a six seconds advantage. Just like 2014 Walslebens becomes second and Francis Mourey completes the podium.

”Before the race the podium was my goal, but when you’re that close to winning coming in second is a bit disappointing. In the final half lap Laurens was just a little better than me. All in all I am quite pleased with the result”, Walsleben said in an Interview with veldrijden.de.tl and made and gave an outlook to the first ’cross World Cup race in Las Vegas and his goals for the season.

Laurens Sweeck said after his first victory for the newly named team: ”There could not have been a better way to start the season. I really had to fight to catch up to Philipp, since he was really fast.”

Bosman rides to victory three and four
Meanwhile Wietse Bosmans of team BKCP-Corendon has fully integrated into the US racing scene. At least in the two Category-2 races oft he Nittany Lion Cross at Breiningsville Bosmans could not be defeated and now has four races under his belt after also winning two races in China. This way BBosmans has collected many UCI points, that he wasn’t able to gather in the last season due to a long-term illness.