There were no major surprises at the third tournament of the 2016 UCI Cycle-ball World Cup in Osaka (Japan). Former UCI World Champions RC Winterthur emerged victorious, with Peter Jiricek and goalkeeper Marcel Waldispühl defeating Asian Champions and local hopefuls Osaka (Yusuke Murakami and Koji Okajima) 7-3.
Playing in their farewell UCI World Cup – the Winterthur duo are due to retire in 2016 – Jiricek and Waldispühl continue to set records. In his 32nd final, the former secured an 18th win in a UCI World Cup tournament. He is the player with the most victories in history.
Winterthur negotiated qualification with ease by winning all four matches, and it was only in their opening game – a 9-4 success against Johor Bahru (Malaysia) – that their standards slipped. In the semi-finals, the Swiss outfit then dispatched Tokyo I (Ko Matsuda/Tomo Yamagata) in a 9-0 whitewash.
Third place in Osaka was claimed by Cronenbourg, who were without Frenchman Frédéric Doell. Stéphane Bauer competed alongside Doell’s replacement Jacques Ohl, and the makeshift duo initially did well, avoiding defeat in Group II before succumbing to Osaka in the semi-finals. In the third-place play-off, Bauer and Ohl were able to grind out a 5-4 win against Tokyo.
2016 UCI Cycle-ball World Cup #4: Sangerhausen (GER), 27 August
Last year’s results
Sangerhausen did not hold a UCI Cycle-ball World Cup event in 2015. The last tournament took place here in 2014.
1. RC Höchst 2 (Simon König / Florian Fischer) 2. RC Höchst 1 (Patrick Schnetzer / Markus Bröll) 3. RMC Stein (Bernd Mlady / Gerhard Mlady)
This will be the fourth time that a UCI World Cup event has been held in Sangerhausen, a German town of 27,500 inhabitants in Saxony-Anhalt. The season finale here in 2012 produced something of an oddity, with Austrian club Höchst providing the winner, runners-up and the third-placed team. In 2014, incidentally, Höchst II and Höchst I also finished in the top two in the final rankings.
Sangerhausen is the hometown of brothers Mike and Steve Pfaffenberger, UCI World Champions in 2005 and now retired. The city’s current great hopes of the sport are U19 European Champions Eric Haedicke and Max Rückschloss. The man behind their success is Axel Pfaffenberger, long-time coach and father of Mike and Steve.
Obernfeld (Manuel and Andre Kopp) currently lead the UCI Cycle-ball World Cup rankings. The two cousins have been one of Germany’s top teams for many years, and have won two UCI World Cup tournaments (in 2009 and 2014). Despite reaching the Final tournament the last four years, they have not yet finished on the podium.
Main results 2nd National Championships (2013,2014) 3rd National Championships (2012, 2015) 2nd National Cup (2011) 4th UCI Cycle-ball World Cup Final (2013) 5th UCI Cycle-ball World Cup Final (2014) 6th UCI Cycle-ball World Cup Final (2015) 6th UEC Cycle-ball European Championships (2016) 1st UEC Cycle-ball U19 European Championships (2006)