Halter, Schehl claim junior titles at MTB Worlds

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Monique Halter (Switzerland) and Paul Schehl (Germany) won the first individual titles to be awarded at the 2022 UCI Mountain Bike World Championships in Les Gets, France, on Thursday, in the Junior women's and men's XCO categories, respectively.

Hot and sunny conditions made for a very dry and dusty 3.9-kilometre circuit, with riders slipping and sliding in the corners. The women rode four laps and the men five.

The women's race was dominated by one rider - Monique Halter of Switzerland. She rode away from the rest of the field on the first lap, establishing a gap of 29 seconds by the start of the second lap over teammate Lea Huber, which grew to 1:16 by the finish line. 

Huber had more of a battle for second with Natalia Grzegorzewska of Poland, but held on to take the silver medal by ten seconds.

The men's race quickly came down to four riders - Paul Schehl and Emil Herzog of Germany, Jan Christen of Switzerland and Paul Magnier of France. 

The four were together until the fourth lap, when Herzog suffered a rear flat; he was able to get to the pits quickly, but his chance of a medal was gone, and he eventually finished sixth. 

Schehl and Christen dropped Magnier in the first half of the final lap, and it looked like it might come down to a sprint. 

However, Christen tried a bold pass on the last descent, 500 metres from the finish line, which ended in a crash on the off-camber corner at the bottom. He managed to recover to take the silver medal ahead of Magnier, but the title went to Schehl.