Muriel Furrer and her father Reto always had the same tradition. On the startline of each race, they would find each other through the crowd, pack down their middle three fingers, and outstretch their thumbs and pinkies.
“Hang loose”, they called it, their moment of calm before the peloton’s chaos. At the same time, Muriel knew her mother, Christine, would be praying for her safety.
Reto and Christine had followed their 18-year-old daughter’s cycling career across Europe. Part of the Swiss Cycling Under-19 team, she won a road national junior title in 2022, and a medal in this year’s Mountain Biking European Championships in Romania.
The family clocked up thousands of miles between races, gathering stories along the way. The time Muriel’s directions led to their campervan becoming wedged in a Verona sidestreet. Prising open a hotel window with bike tools. Card games every evening.
But the Furrers did not need their campervan for September’s World Championships, when the planet’s greatest riders would flock to Zurich, just 20 minutes from Muriel’s home in the village of Egg. The 74km junior women’s road race course began in Uster, just one town over, winding over tarmac she had ridden hundreds of times before. It was to be the biggest race of her fledgling…
