Mathias Flückiger’s return to World Cup racing in Nove Mesto was highly anticipated, but it ended up being exciting for all the wrong reasons.
The Swiss racer was flying down a series of high-speed drops behind Nino Schurter when he started to lose control. One foot unclipped, then the other as Flückiger hurtled towards the next ledge.
The Thomus-Maxon racer rode out the drop on the top tube of his race bike with his feet skidding along the ground. Somehow, though, Flückiger stayed upright. He got back on the saddle, which could not have been comfortable after that rocky ride, and went on to finish seventh in the race.
Flückiger posted a video of the near-miss on Instagram. Luca Schwarzbauer, who was right behind the Swiss rider as he came unhinged and somehow avoided crashing into Flückiger, responded in the comments that “This was the craziest save I have ever seen.”
You can see more of the sequence below.
Flückiger has nearly a month to recover, and ice, before World Cup cross country racing resumes in Lenzerheide, Switzerland on June 9-11, 2023.
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