FEI World Cup Helsinki 2014: all Swiss podium in Finland.

The second stage of this season’s FEI World Cup has come to an end and it was a clean sweep by Switzerland who managed to place all 3 riders on the podium. Olympic Champion Steve Guerdat with Nino des Buissonnets (Kannan) came in first place while an in-form Martin Fuchs reunited with his favourite mount PSG Future came in second place to round-off a brilliant period after winning the UB GP yesterday. The all Swiss podium was completed by Pius Schwizer on Sixtine de Vains after a thrilling head to head battle with Fuchs.
14 riders were classified after the first round of which one was Italy’s Luca Maria Moneta on Connery. However, the Italian collected 12 penalties in the jump-off which meant that the clears in the final phase stood at 9. Fuchs initially took the lead with a time of 35.10 but it didn’t last long and Steve Guerdat on Nino des Buissonnets set a new fastest time of 34.96 which was good enough to give them the win.
The final rider of the Swiss trio to go round the course was Pius Schwizer with Sixtine de Vains and it left his fellow countryman Fuchs sweating; Schwizer came very close to relegating his younger rival to second place but in the end he was just a couple of tenths of a second slower and had to settle for third.
After his brilliant win in Oslo in the last round, Jur Vrieling collected precious points by coming in fourth place on vdl Zirocco Blue (Mr.Blue) and kept up his positive start to the World Cup season. The rest of the top-ten was as follows:
5th Marlon Mòdolo Zanotelli BRA Extra van Essene
6th Christian Ahlmann GER Cornado
7th Kevin Staut FRA Ayade de Septon HDC
8th Geir Gulliksen NOR Edesa S Banjan
9th Alexandre Fontanelle FRA Prime Time des Vagues
10th Anna Julia Kontio FIN Fardon
For a full set of the results, please see here: http://eventcontent.hippoonline.de/956/sta_erg/10_ergENG.htm?style=longines