It is difficult to add up the exact seconds that were lost when Marlen Reusser suffered a mechanical that required a bike change in the closing kilometres of the team time trial mixed relay, but her teammate Stefan Küng was sure that it was the moment the race was lost at the UCI Road World Championships in Kigali, Rwanda.
Switzerland finished in third, 10 seconds behind the gold medalists from Australia.
“It’s very unfortunate, Marlen didn’t want to put it in numbers, but I am pretty sure the title was lost there, but with ifs and what ifs, we would have been world champions more times already,” said Küng while sitting next to his teammates Reusser along with Jan Christen, Mauro Schmid, Jasmin Liechti and Noemi Rüegg in front of the assembled media at the Kigali Convention Centre on Wednesday..
Although it wasn’t immediately clear what had happened to her bike, Reusser, who had won the world title in the individual time trial on Sunday, explained that her derailleur was not shifting properly as they approached the final cobbled climb, Côte de Kimihurura.
Probably the most surprising turn of events occurred when the TV footage panned back to Reusser, and while everyone watched, expecting…
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