The Swiss rider powered away on the third out of seven laps, quickly gaining time on her rivals before enjoying a victory parade on the last two laps, then punching the air in delight as she crossed the finish line with a 1:07 lead.
Behind her, a heated duel raged between Martina Berta (Italy) and Nicole Koller (Switzerland) with Berta taking the sprint for second place ahead of Koller.
Frei had already been showing good form, taking the double win at Les Gets last weekend, and two third places in the World Cup season so far.
“I think it was more a dream,” Frei answered when asked if the XCO World Championships was a goal this year.
“After two years where I really struggled, for me, it maybe in the middle of the season it became maybe a dream or a goal. But in the beginning of the season, it was for sure only a dream somewhere.”
“I just wanted to focus only on myself. I can only influence myself, and because of that, I just tried to ride my own race and then I could also just go fast where it was for me. Kind of a little bit easier to go fast and recover in the parts where it was better for me, and somehow I managed to win.”
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Alessandra Keller (Switzerland) had to grapple with an early mechanical, pulling over in the start loop as defending champion Jenny Rissveds (Sweden) rode at the front. By the end of the first lap, the rider from Sweden had settled into a leading group of three with Frei and Berta, though the gap to a group including Puck Pieterse (Netherlands, Haley Batten (United States), Koller and Savilla Blunk (USA) was just eight seconds.
Rissveds fell prey to a mechanical, and by the end of the third lap Frei was out front alone with an eleven-second gap to Berta. That gap just kept growing for Frei, but Berta was joined by Koller with the pair not so much in pursuit of Frei, who had a commanding 1:10 gap to the pair by the time the bell was rung for the final lap, but dicing for the silver.
Lyne has been involved in professional cycling for more than 15 years in both news reporting and sports marketing. She founded Podium Insight in 2008, quickly becoming a trusted source for news of the North American professional cycling world. She was the first to successfully use social media to consistently provide timely and live race updates for all fans. She is proud to have covered men's and women's news equally during her tenure at the helm of the site. Her writing has appeared on Cyclingnews and other news sites.
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