It was as exciting a weekend as any to watch a UCI mountain bike event from afar, with ambitious newcomers taking a strong lead, keying up positions for the Olympics, and putting pressure on many of the veterans.
Nino Schurter was ousted by Victor Koretzky in a sprint finish and Loana Lecomte put a minute-long lead on Pauline Ferrand-Prevot while newly Elite racer Haley Batten took third, five seconds faster than Kate Courtney.
Ahead of the XCO race on Sunday though, was Friday’s short track race. For the women’s race, Linda Indergand sprinted out of a corner on the third lap to gain a strong lead throughout most of the race, but eventually Pauline Ferrand-Prevot jumped ahead, sprinting to seal a win a hair ahead of Indergand. Indergand would finish a tenth of a second behind Ferrand-Prevot, with Annie Last, Kate Courtney, and Loana Lecomte making up 3rd, 4th, and 5th.
Men’s and women’s short track
- Pauline Ferrand-Prevot
- Linda Indergand
- Annie Last
- Kate Courtney
- Loana Lecomte
- Rebecca McConnell
- Anne Terpstra
- Sina Frei
- Eva Lechner
- Jenny Rissveds
For the men’s XCC, the versatile Mathieu Van der Poel attacked early to gain a lead on Nino Schurter and worked to keep his lead. In the final lap, Van der Poel put more distance between him and Schurter to win, and Koretzky followed for bronze. Schurter mentioned to Red Bull TV that his “goal was to get through here without spending too much energy, to keep a bit for Sunday,” but that strategy didn’t work out entirely either.
- Mathieu Van der Poel
- Victor Koretzky
- Nino Schurter
- Henrique Avancini
- Mathias Flückiger
- Jordan Sarrou
- Peter Disera
- Luca Braidot
- Nadir Colledani
- Alan Hatherly
Men’s and women’s XCO
French rider Loana Lecomte took an early lead in the first lap in Albstadt and kept a huge margin over all of the competing ladies for the entire race. In lap one, Lecomte had an 18 second lead on Courtney and Anne Terpstra, and another two seconds on Ferrand-Prevot. By the final lap, Lecomte had no competition for gold, with almost a minute lead over Ferrand-Prevot. Courtney and Terpstra battled earlier in the race, but ultimately Courtney fell behind to 4th, behind another US rider, Utahn Haley Batten, in her first-ever Elite UCI race.
- Loana Lecomte
- Pauline Ferrand Prevot
- Haley Batten
- Kate Courtney
- Yana Belomoina
- Anne Terpstra
- Linda Indergand
- Laura Stigger
- Jenny Rissveds
- Sina Frei
On the men’s side, Thomas Pidcock picked off Henrique Avancini and Luca Braidot and clawed his way up rather quickly. Mathias Flückiger was leading by lap five, with Nino Schurter and Koretzky less than a second behind him, but Flückiger’s dropper post became problematic, and got stuck in the down position. A lot of XC racers have been hesitant to even justify the weight of a dropper post, and though more racers are starting to use them on the World Cup courses, this time it potentially cost Flückiger the race.
Koretzky and Schurter leapfrogged each other in the final laps, and Schurter led on the final lap. Into the finish line Koretzky darted in front of Schurter and sprinted the final straightaway, nabbing the win. If Schurter had won, he would have matched the all-time World Cup win record of Julien Absalon. Surely, Schurter still has a great chance of breaking that record this season.
- Victor Koretzky
- Nino Schurter
- Mathias Flückiger
- Ondrej Cink
- Thomas Pidcock
- Anton Cooper
- Mathieu Van der Poel
- Alan Hatherly
- Thomas Griot
- Henrique Avancini
The next World Cup XCC and XCO races are this coming weekend in Nove Mesto, Czech Republic.
