The 2010 UCI Mountain Bike World Cup moved to Italy’s Val di Sole, the mountainous location in the northeastern part of the country, where the World Championships took place two years ago.
Men’s XC Race
Switzerland’s Nino Schurter and France’s Julien Absalon showed amazing skills and great mountainbiking along the Italian track. Since the very beginning of the race today, they took the lead together with Swiss Naef, Vogel and Fluckiger and Spain’s Hermida.
After four laps, the Absalon-Vogel-Schurter trio increased their rhythm, with nobody behind them keeping their pace. The last lap was all about the Absalon-Schurter battle, with Vogel too slow and probably tired in third position.
The French and the Swiss riders kept overtaking each other till the last 500 meters, where Schurter decided that it had been enough for today and got rid of the French, who came in second.
Women’s XC race
In the women’s race, today has been the day of Polish Maja Wloszczowska who crossed the finish line first before Canada’s Catherine Pendrel and Russian World Champion Irina Kalentieva. Since the very first lap, Wloszczowska and Pendrel kept the lead of the race, followed by a group of six, consisting of Americans Koerber, Compton and Gould, Russian Kalentieva, Italian Lechner and Czech Nash.
On the first uphill of lap three, the polish-canadian duo went forward, while the battle for third place was between Kalentieva, Nash and Compton. Pendrel seemed in control of the race at that point as she maintained a few meters advantage on her opponent. But Wloszczowska never let her go, and just outside of the forest before the finish, she overtook the Canadian and grabbed her first victory in 2010 World Cup.
In the Junior category this morning, Swiss Jolanda Neff secured gold since the very first lap. Ukraine’s national champion Yana Belomoyna came in second while Czech Karolina Kalasova took third. Among men, Italy’s Maximilian Vieider led the race for three laps before being overtaken during the last lap by Belgian Jens Schuermans. Belgium’s Jeff Luyten came in third.
4X
The 4X finals took place as well tonight and World Cup leader Anneke Beerten dominated both semifinal and final. Beerten increased the gap from Austria’s Anita Molcik who was third in the World Cup standings, and finished second today. British Katy Curd came in third.
In the men’s race, World Cup leader and World Champion Jared Graves easily reached the big final, along with Swiss Rinderknecht, Czech Slavik and Prokop. At the start of the final race, Graves jumped ahead of everyone else, however he made a little mistake on the second turn and Rinderknecht took advantage of it. Also Slavik and Prokop managed to overtake the World Champion, while Rinderknecht was cycling fast towards his first success in the 2010 World Cup.
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