Cycle-ball Worlds: Schnetzer and Bröll win the title for Austria
Austria are the men's cycle-ball world champions. Patrick Schnetzer and Markus Bröll of RV Dornbirn won the final at the MHP-Arena in Ludwigsburg on Sunday, 1 November, beating Germany 8-1. Michael Birkner and Robert Mlady of RMC Stein took silver.
The Austrians went through the tournament unbeaten, scoring 51 goals and conceding 12 in six games. Their only dropped points came in a 5-5 group draw with Czechia. They had already beaten Germany 9-5 in the second round and swept past Switzerland 8-0 in the semi-final.
After that defeat, Birkner and Mlady reached the final via a 9-1 quarter-final win over Hungary and a tight 4-3 semi-final against Jiří Hrdlička st. and Jan Kripner of Czechia. Bronze went to Switzerland's Timon and Yannick Fröhlich, who beat Czechia 10-2. In the relegation match, Japan kept their place in the elite league with a 5-1 win over Challenger League winners Italy.
It is the seventh world title together for Schnetzer and Bröll and their first since 2019 in Basel. For Schnetzer it is a ninth world title in all. Austria take over from Germany, who had won the title from 2023 to 2025.