“Extremely annoying”
Jury errors cost Germany a World Cup medal
Updated 10/27/2025 – 10:05 amReading time: 2 minutes
In Chile, a German track cycling duo initially celebrated their bronze medal. But a short time later the jury had to correct itself. Germany comes away empty-handed.
Roger Kluge and Moritz Augenstein had already been happy about winning bronze, but the joy was short-lived: a calculation error by the jury prevented a German medal at the Madison final of the World Track Cycling Championships in Santiago de Chile on Sunday evening. The two German drivers were initially ranked third before the race stewards had to admit their mistake. The points display during the race was incorrect.
National coach Lucas Schädlich was clearly upset after the incident: “It’s extremely annoying. It feels like we were cheated out of a medal. Ultimately, the result as it stands now is correct. But they showed the wrong points the whole time.” Schädlich spoke of a “very big mistake” and found it “extremely blatant that something like that happened at a World Cup.”
After 200 laps, Kluge and Augenstein took the ungrateful fourth place with 64 points. Denmark benefited from the incorrect display and took bronze with 71 points behind Belgium (81) and Great Britain (73). Schädlich emphasized that the German team would have organized the race tactically differently if the correct distribution of points had been known.
For Kluge, the experienced Berliner, there was no further World Cup medal. He spoke of a difficult race that was very intense from the start. His teammate Augenstein, who was competing in a world championship for the first time, was at least able to celebrate gold in the scratch race on Thursday.
Overall, the German record at the World Cup in Chile is poor: in addition to Augenstein’s gold, only the women’s foursome won another medal in the form of silver. Despite the return of Lea Sophie Friedrich and Pauline Grabosch, the German sprinters again came away empty-handed. Friedrich, eight-time world champion, came sixth in the Keirin.
Sprint national coach Jan van Eijden stated that the performances did not meet his own expectations. Although we were competitive everywhere, there was nowhere enough for a medal. Other nations have now not only caught up, but have clearly overtaken Germany.
The most successful nation in the title fights in Santiago de Chile was the Netherlands. Harrie Lavreysen won four gold medals (sprint, keirin, time trial, team sprint) and now has a total of 20 world titles. Hetty van den Wouw won three times among women. The next Track Cycling World Championships will take place in Shanghai in October 2026.