World Championship XC Round-Up

Mud laden, steep and at almost 2000m above sea level, this was one hell of a cross-country track – and this was the World Championships.

Days of rain before the final day made conditions tough at the Vallnord Bike Park in La Massana, Andorra, but when is XC not tough, eh?

In the men’s event, one of the favourites, Jaroslav Kulhavy, was forced to drop out after just the first lap due to a recurring injury he sustained whilst training on the track in the previous days.

The Czech’s absence all but made it a two man race between rivals Nino Schurter and Julien Absalon.

The two were neck and neck throughout most of the race with Ondrej Cink giving a good effort behind.

But it was the soon-to-be champion Nino Schurter who pulled away and literally collapsed over the finish line with sheer exhaustion to win by a mere ten seconds (edit).

In the women’s event, current cyclocross World Champion, Pauline Ferrand-Prevot, was tipped to do well even though she did not start from the front row.

The French rider did start quickly though and caught the leaders with relative ease. She went on to take the top spot. The favourite, Jolanda Neff, didn’t perform well despite an early lead on the first lap. She eventually dropped into ninth.

Third place came at a slight surprise as Ukrainian Yana Belomoina put in an outstanding run despite not looking like a threat before the race had began.

The silver medal went to two time World Champion Irina Kalentyeva who was unable to catch the Ferrand-Prevot, who finished with a time of 1:52:44.

Here are the results

Interestingly (and here comes the commentary), the UK did pretty well in the Juniors and the U23s too, but Annie Last was 21st in the Women’s and…

…WE DIDN’T BOTHER ENTERING ANYONE AT ALL IN THE MEN’S RACE.

No-one. Which keeps up with BC’s glorious policy of only entering senior racers if they stand a chance of a podium finish.