Kurschat qualified for the German squad, along with his teammates Manuel Fumic and Moritz Milatz, in the men's cross-country race at the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, by finishing third from the German Championships and by receiving one of the nation's three available berths from the German Cycling Federation () and the Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI), based on his best performance at the World Cup series, World and European Championships, and Mountain Biking World Series. Kurschat could not upgrade a much stellar ride to complete a 4.8-km cross-country race course, as he decided to pull himself off from the race with only two laps left and a thirty-third-place effort because of bike problems.