After the race of Lenzerheide a great friendship was not born between Nino Schurter and Mathias Fluckiger (see what happened). Both Swiss and both eager to win: these 2 ingredients are enough to understand the competitive spirit that runs between the two strong athletes.
Mathias Fluckiger will not participate in the next 2 stages of the World Cup (snowshoe and Mont Sainte Anne) because he fell ill with Covid-19 after the Andorra stage. And he takes the opportunity to respond to the accusations received.
THE EPISODE
After the dramatic finale of the race Lenzerheide, Mathias Flückiger has been the subject of numerous insults and hateful comments on the Internet (the beautiful side of social networks… ..). For those who had not followed the episode, Schurter and Fluckiger were contending for victory on the home World Cup, but an overtaking maneuver by Mathias (not recorded) knocked Nino down. The two then finished in 3rd and 4th place with Very embittered Schurter.
THE ANSWERS OF FLUCKIGER
On his official web site, Mathias defends himself by not using the terrible social networks:
The last few days and weeks have been very intense and have clearly shown me how close ups and downs, wins and losses, joy and pain in top-level sport are. A summary and some personal reflections on the last few weeks.
For almost three weeks I had prepared excellently for the second part of the high altitude season. The start of the World Cup at home a Lenzerheide went according to plan: 2nd place in the short track. It is known that then the XC race did not go as we all would have liked.
However, what particularly hurt me (other than the missed win) was that I was accused of intent, frustration, bad behavior and more. Anyone who has ever raced or can put themselves in the situation of a biker knows it: you have to make decisions in fractions of a second, intuitively. And intuition is based on experience. I would never cause a fall on purpose or out of frustration.
I had said what there was to say on Sunday night. I honestly and directly communicated how it was, what I felt, what I thought and how I classified this race incident. I also said I'm sorry Nino fell. And today I would say the same thing again.
Scary: frustration, aggression, anger and hatred on the Internet
But what happened next got me thinking. I was shocked at how many people online are fueling frustration, aggression, anger and hatred - and all of this just because of two bikers falling. For the first time, I have personally experienced how anger, frustration or even hatred are expressed online. This is for a person you don't even know personally and for something that doesn't really matter much in this world.
Perhaps the comparison is a bit strange, but this behavior was also observed during the coronavirus pandemic. You can do or say what you want. Some people have an insatiable need to take someone down. This statement bothers me and still worries me today. Because it is something that affects us all, yes, our whole society.
Thanks to my staff, I was finally able to focus on my training the following week. Winning the short track in Vallnord (Andorra) meant a lot to me. It showed me that I am stronger than ever. It showed me that my joy as a professional biker is constant and that I continue to go my own way together with my team and those around me. This includes winning, but it also includes losing.
I only remembered it two days later. I had to give up on the XC race. Already on Saturday I was not feeling so well. Unfortunately the situation did not improve on Sunday night and so we decided together to focus on the rest of the season and not to force. Unfortunately, the severe cold symptoms were later confirmed by the test results as Covid-19 infection.
I feel better now. However, I decided to skip the 2 stages of the Snowshoe and Mount-Sainte-Anne Cup. Now I have to make some detours to reach my big goal of the season, the World Championship.
Thank you for your support!
Mathias Fluckiger
