He retired on the last lap, was he doing alreet, did he come off or a mechanical?

Crash by the sounds of it..

Jebus, surprised they let him do an MTB race mid-season

I’d imagine that the injuries sustained by the average WT rider during a season of road race crashes are far and away worse than that vast majority of injuries picked up in xc MTB racing!!!!

surprised they let him do an MTB race mid-season

what, sprinkle some of his world champion rock star fairy dust on the XC MTB scene? Could have been worse, he could have raced L-B-L today…

He crashed

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10208782777627422&set=a.10208782777107409.1073741835.1252331677&type=3

Jebus, surprised they let him do an MTB race mid-season

Do they realise MTB’s run disc brakes,he could have been sliced in two! 😆

One of the top cx guys was at cairns racing too, Olympic qualification I think is the order of the day. If they have the skills then go for it, though as the commentary pointed out its not just a case of being able to pedal hard these days.

Several cross and road racers have ridden Olympic events, notably Sven Nys and Jean Christophe Peraud. Be interested to know the detail behind Sagan – he’s clearly got teh skillz

Yeah but Jean Christophe Peraud was a mountain biker at the time, he didn’t go over to road till later. Jakob Fuglsang also road mtb before road, it isn’t that uncommon. More shows how little interest there is in the UK for XC racing, that people only hear of them when they become big road stars.

Those conditions at L-B-L look horrid.

I’d imagine that the injuries sustained by the average WT rider during a season of road race crashes are far and away worse than that vast majority of injuries picked up in xc MTB racing!!!!

Maybe, although I’d hazard that there are more road riders than XC that anyone would have heard of, the entire XC field bar the podium could be wiped out by a wayward gazelle at the SA round and I’d probably not notice, but I’d maybe know the name of some domestique from a WT team if he broke his collarbone on the cobbles.

And with the exception of Sagan, not many road riders would have the marketing pull to sell enough XC bikes after a weekends racing to justify the added risk of them having to sit out the rest of the season (and effectively have a sprint team coasting round the world tours without a sprinter costing millions).