It was a spectacular end to an unconventional and short season here in Leogang. The freshly built track threw some punches of its own today. Nearly every rider made mistakes. Some of greater magnitude than others. Kate Courtney had a high-speed crash and pulled out of the race after she felt the beginning signs of a concussion. Stephane Tempier also had a big crash and pulled out of the race. The rain held off for all but the last lap of the men's race and even then it was just a sprinkle. The track was drying up and becoming more manageable as the day wore on. Several others were on the DNF list at race end. In the U23 races, Thomas Pidcock followed up his e-MTB Gold medal with another win. Loana Lecomte took the win for the U23 women in commanding style. Pauline Ferrand Prevot came to Leogang with a title to defend and took the win for the women. In the ride of the day, Jordan Sarrou took the rainbow jersey for the men. Rebecca McConnell and Eva Lechner had an incredible sprint finish for second and third.
The theme of the day seemed to be massive gaps between first and second place. Pauline Ferrand Prevot had a 3:01 gap over Eva Lechner. Loana Lecomte had a gap of over a minute on second place Kata Vas. Jordan Sarrou had the smallest gap of 45 seconds. Still impressive. Thomas Pidcock had a gap of 1:52 on Chris Blevins. It seemed whoever got out in front just ran away with the day. And with that our strange little season concludes on the realm of XC. Stay tuned for what could be a snowy DH finals today.
Cool for Ceylin to pick up two Worlds medals too this year, though the other one was a gold on in elite CX. Again, no mtb but if you win (or even pick up a medal), you're amazing.
Not too often you see some of the XC & DH bikes running the same (Dirty Dan) tyres.
Obviously completely diff sizes, casings, compounds, etc...
Looks like Dirty Dan's on the front (can't see rears) for the Schwalbe riders, would expect Forekasters for the Maxxis gang, but it looks like Nino has a Beaver(?) (that doesn't even appear on the Maxxis website, but looks like you can buy them). Amazingly it looks like Sarrou (had to?!) do it on Barzos!