Kugler and Henzi close to overall Sunshine Cup victories

The fifth and final round of the Cyprus Sunshine Cup is set for March 16 at Yermasogia and there are two battles for the overall win in progress. Austrian Christoph Soukup and Swiss Andreas Kugler are the favorites in the men's race while Swiss Petra Henzi and Czech Tereza Hurikova will be duking it out in the women's race.

Fischer BMC rider Kugler has a chance to grab the overall title as he is just 55 points behind series leader Roel Paulissen; however, the Belgian has already returned home to finish preparations for the Cape Epic stage race. Kugler would need to finish only 17th to overtake Paulissen for the lead. Meanwhile, Sweden's Alexander Wetterhall is 72 points behind Kugler and would need to take 5th to win the series should Kugler not be able to finish for some reason.

Looking only at race day results, the main duel will be between Christoph Soukup and Kugler. They will race the 5.8km course with challengers like Milan Spesny, who finished second in Voroklini.

In the women's race, only bad luck will prevent Henzi from taking the overall in the women's competition. The experienced racer has done every Sunshine Cup race and leads the ranking by 45 points ahead of German Ivonne Kraft. So Henzi could make it a double win for her team Fischer BMC.

After the exciting race at Voroklini where she crashed, Hurikova, will make another attempt to celebrate her first victory. The Czech woman has finished second in the series races three times, and for sure will be looking toward the top step of the podium. Kraft and her country-mates Adelheid Morath and Katrin Schwing will be mixing it up with the leaders.