• Cycling

More wins for Miller and Looser in Europe

• 2 Months Ago 18 June 2024

Another successful weekend for Namibian mountain bikers during the European summer season was celebrated when Alex Miller and Vera Looser stood at the top of the podium of separate high-profile events.

Miller won the sought-after Argovia Vittoria-Fischer mountain bike race at Biasca in Switzerland by more than 90 seconds on Sunday. The event is included in the worldwide UCI mountain biking series for 2024 by the world governing body for cycling.

The Namibian elite men’s champion finished the 24 km route, completed in six laps, in 50 minutes 45 seconds. Close together in a sprint for second and third places were Stefano Navoni of Italy (52:05.4) and Janis Spescha of Switzerland (52:05.7).

In the junior races (U18), Miller’s younger compatriots Roger Surén (fourth) and Delsia van Vuuren (eighth) also had a great time. Surén dropped down to sixth place with a flat tyre, but finished barely two seconds behind the bronze medallist.



Looser triumphs in Italy

Meanwhile on Saturday, Vera Looser took first position in the Hero Südtirol Dolomites mountain bike race in the north of Italy.

“They say it is the hardest mountain bike race in the world, although a lot of events organisers say that. This one is properly brutal,” Looser told us yesterday.

“The elite men rode a distance of 86 kilometres with 4600 metres of climbing, while the elite women did 60 km with 3200 metres of climbing.

“The four big climbs were indeed super steep. The last one was about 3.7 km with more than 500 metres of altitude gain. I had the fastest time up that climb of all the women, and I averaged 5.5 km per hour.

“It was a good race with good competition there -some strong climbers that are super light in weight, but I had a really good day and I could keep up with them on the climbs, and I’m really strong on the downhills, able to make up a good time difference there, especially on the third downhill.

“On the last climb I was on my own and could ride with what I had in me, followed by the downhill to the finish, so there was quite a gap before the next girl, although we rode together for a long time and she is a super strong rider.

“Itt was quite cool that the gave me a Namibian flag shortly before the finish line, and played the Namibian anthem before we were spraying champagne on the podium.”

In two weeks’ time, the 30-year-old Looser will take on her next UCI World Cup marathon mountain bike race at Megève in Haute-Savoie, France. This was the race where the Namibian announced herself with her first World Cup marathon win last year.

Since then, at the end of May, Looser added her second UCI World Cup title at Nové Mesto na Morave in Czech Republic.

“It will be another brutal race over 100 km with 5000 metres of climbing. So, ja, that will be next for me.”

Miller (23) made his UCI World Cup marathon debut in Czech Republic, taking an impressive silver medal behind Italy's Fabian Rabensteiner.