{"id":17633,"date":"2016-09-09T08:40:00","date_gmt":"2016-09-09T07:40:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/2016\/09\/09\/merida-is-stepping-away-from-the-uci-mountain-bike-sport-r5536\/"},"modified":"2023-02-08T07:42:10","modified_gmt":"2023-02-08T07:42:10","slug":"merida-is-stepping-away-from-the-uci-mountain-bike-sport-r5536","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/merida-is-stepping-away-from-the-uci-mountain-bike-sport-r5536\/","title":{"rendered":"MERIDA is stepping away from the UCI-Mountain Bike Sport"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>After 16 successful years MERIDA will be finishing their support of the MULTIVAN MERIDA BIKING TEAM on 31st December 2016 and will step away from Olympic Cross Country Racing (XCO). More than 30 World Cup wins, 15 World Championship titles, 15 European and countless national titles as well as an Olympic Gold and Silver medal have made this team the most successful UCI Mountain Bike team of all times. At the recent 2016 season finale at the bike park Vallnord \/ Andorra, the team managed to show their class once more by securing three second places.<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"ipsAttachLink ipsAttachLink_image\" href=\"https:\/\/wp-media.bikehub.co.za\/production\/uploads\/2023\/02\/ccs-62657-0-95564700-1473410603.jpg\" data-fileid=\"798067\" data-fileext=\"jpg\" rel=\"\"><img decoding=\"async\" data-fileid=\"798067\" class=\"ipsImage ipsImage_thumbnailed\" alt=\"ccs-62657-0-95564700-1473410603.jpg\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.bikehub.co.za\/production\/uploads\/2023\/02\/ccs-62657-0-95564700-1473410603.jpg\" title=\"\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>The purely strategic decision to step away from mountain bike racing presents the opportunity to take an \u2018observer role\u2019, comments MERIDA Director of Sports Marketing Andreas Rottler. \u2018MERIDA will be back in mountain bike racing for sure after a time of reflection and orientation,\u2019 continues Rottler.<\/p>\n<p>The team is looking back at more than one and a half decades of successful international racing with an outstanding team spirit. \u2018On behalf of the whole team I would like to express my deepest thanks to everybody who has accompanied us on our successful path,\u2019 underlines Team Manager Fabian Aust, stressing the strong relationship with all team supporters.<\/p>\n<p>Currently Spanish rider Jose\u0301 Antonio Hermida, Gunn-Rita Dahle Flesja\u030a from Norway, the Czech Ondrej Cink as well as Swiss rider Thomas Litscher race for the MULTIVAN MERIDA BIKING TEAM.<\/p>\n<p>MERIDA wishes all athletes and team members the best in their future endeavours.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>After 16 successful years MERIDA will be finishing their support of the MULTIVAN MERIDA BIKING TEAM on 31st December 2016 and will step away from Olympic Cross Country Racing (XCO). More than 30 World Cup wins, 15 World Championship titles, 15 European and countless national titles as well as an Olympic Gold and Silver medal [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":40376,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[213,1858,2245],"featured_location":[],"class_list":["post-17633","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-events","tag-merida","tag-multivan-merida","tag-multivan-merida-biking-team"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17633","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17633"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17633\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/40376"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17633"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17633"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17633"},{"taxonomy":"featured_location","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/featured_location?post=17633"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}