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Tom Pidcock (Ineos Grenadiers) and Puck Pieterse (Alpecin-Deceuninck) won the elite short track cross-country races at the WHOOP UCI MTB World Series round at Crans-Montana, Switzerland on Saturday.
Pidcock overcame early-race miscues and powered to an incredible come-from-behind victory in the men’s race. German Julian Schelb (Stop&Go Marderabwehr MTB Team) closed quickly for second place, surging to within two seconds of Pidcock at the line.
Luca Braidot (Santa Cruz RockShox Pro Team) was another four seconds down for third, while Christopher Blevins (Specialized Factory Racing) rode just ahead of Maximilian Brandl (Lexware Mountainbike Team) and Nino Schurter (Scott-SRAM MTB Racing) for fourth.
Pieterse broke away from four other riders in the lead group to secure her second consecutive win of the season. Alessandra Keller (Thömas Maxon) won a three-rider sprint for second, just ahead of Loana Lecomte (Canyon CLLCTV), who took third, and Anne Tauber, in fourth.
With her runner-up finish, Keller retained her lead in the World Cup rankings for XCC. Haley Batten (Specialized Factory Racing), second in the standings, was never in the mix and finished 27th, allowing Pieterse to overtake her spot in the series.
Overall XCC series leader Victor Koretzky (Specialized Factory Racing) did not start on Saturday due to illness and injury. However, he retained his lead when his closest challenger, world champion Sam Gaze (Alpecin-Deceuninck), seemed to suffer from ongoing knee problems on the laps after the holeshot and barely managed to finish the six laps, going next-to-last in 36th position. Blevins jumps to third overall.
More to come…
Results – Women XCC
Results – Men XCC
