Kurt Betschart

Kurt Betschart at a race on the Albert-Richter-Bahn in Cologne with the organizer Renate Franz

Kurt Betschart as Technical Director of the Tour de Suisse (left), with Stefano Bertolotti, press spokesman for the UEC

Kurt Betschart (* 25. August 1968 in Erstfeld ) is a Swiss cycling organizer and former pro - cyclists .

Athletic career

Together with friends, including his later partner Bruno Risi and his brother Geri, Kurt Betschart started cycling at the VMC Erstfeld at the age of eleven .

In 1986 Betschart won a stage of the international 3-stage tour for juniors in Frankfurt am Main . Four years later he took two podium places in the single pursuit and points race at the Swiss Elite Track Championships . In the following years he continued to drive street races - he competed twice in the Tour de Suisse , but then focused on the track , from 1991 as a professional . Four times he was Swiss champion in the points race.

From 1992 Kurt Betschart formed a congenial couple with Bruno Risi in six-day races ; In 1992 the Swiss team took their first victory in Dortmund . Risi / Betschart achieved 37 six-day victories by 2006 and thus hold the record. On July 26th, 2006 Kurt Betschart announced his retirement after 16 years in professional cycling.

Professional

Betschart is the technical director of the Tour de Suisse and, in 2014, the sports director of the Sixday Nights in Zurich .

In 2007 a square in Betschart's hometown of Erstfeld was named “Risi-Betschart-Platz” after him and his standard partner Bruno Risi for many years.

Driver profile

Kurt Betschart was a rail specialist. As such, he also knew how to achieve success with criteria on the street. He was a fast-paced driver, but his skills were often neglected due to his elegant and very efficient driving style. But he had the same share in the victories of the standard pairing with Bruno Risi .

Professional

Kurt Betschart has been technical coordinator for the Tour de Suisse at IMG since 2007 .

literature

• Kurt Betschart in the Munzinger archive ( beginning of article freely accessible)

Web links

• Kurt Betschart in the Radsportseiten.net database
• Kurt Betschart in the Sports-Reference database (English; archived from the original )

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Mario Wittenwiler: The unequal twins. (No longer available online.) Sixdays-zuerich.ch, October 28, 2014, archived from the original on July 2, 2015 ; Retrieved April 26, 2015 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
2. ↑ New management: Olivier Senn and Kurt Betschart. Tour de Suisse, June 4, 2013, accessed on November 28, 2014 . 
3. ↑ News from the Organizing Committee. (No longer available online.) Sixdays Zurich, September 24, 2014, archived from the original on December 17, 2014 ; Retrieved November 28, 2014 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
4. ^ Place of honor "Risi-Betschart Platz" in Erstfeld September 11, 2005.
5. ↑ Tour de Suisse.ch: Organigram ( Memento of the original from June 8, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.