MTB World Cup Mont-Sainte-Anne – Koretzky and Stigger claim short track wins

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Pieterse and Schwarzbauer secure the overall World Cup short track titles at final round in Canada

Laura Stigger (Specialized) at the Snowshoe Mountain Bike World Cup earlier this month
Laura Stigger (Specialized) at the Snowshoe Mountain Bike World Cup earlier this month (Image credit: Bartek Wolinski / Red Bull Content Pool)

Victor Koretzky (Specialized Factory Racing) and Laura Stigger (Specialized) claimed the final short track (XCC) victories of the year at the Mont-Sainte-Anne UCI MTB World Cup while Puck Pieterse (Alpecin-Deceuninck) and Luca Schwarzbauer (Canyon CLLCTV) took out the overall World Cup XCC titles.

Stigger, who last week claimed her first elite cross-country Olympic (XCO) victory at Snowshoe, kept the momentum rolling in Canada as she delivered a powerful attack in the final lap of eight. She dropped Leona Lecomte (Canyon CLLCTV), who finished second, and Rebecca Henderson (Primaflor Mondraker Genuins Racing Team) who took third.

Pieterse came over the line in fifth place which was enough for the 21-year-old rider to claim the short track series win ahead of Alessandra Keller (Thömus Maxon), who finished 14th on the day.

"I gave everything I had," said Pieterse who was hoping for a better result to finish off her year of short track racing, however was pleased to secure the overall. "I'll let it sink in tonight and tomorrow a bit and then try and focus one more time to go full gas."

The Dutch rider, who is also on track to take out the XCO series title said "I hope I have better legs than today on Sunday because I really want to go out with a bang."

In the elite men's short track race, it was a group of eight that came through together at the start of the final lap of ten, and Koretzky was quick to lay down an attack. The French rider stretched out a small gap and held it through to the finish to keep his end-of-season short-track victory streak on a roll, making it three in succession. Jordan Sarrou (Team BMC) was second and US rider Christopher Blevins (Specialized Factory Racing) came third.

"The beginning of this season was not so good for me and now I am in good shape and I'm just enjoying riding in the front. It's amazing to fight, like today, with strong guys," said an emotional Koretzky in the televised post-race interview. "It was really tactical and I love racing like this because until the last lap, you never know who will win."

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Men's short track results

Women's short track results

Simone Giuliani
Simone Giuliani
Australia Editor

Simone is a degree-qualified journalist that has accumulated decades of wide-ranging experience while working across a variety of leading media organisations. She joined Cyclingnews as a Production Editor at the start of the 2021 season and has now moved into the role of Australia Editor. Previously she worked as a freelance writer, Australian Editor at Ella CyclingTips and as a correspondent for Reuters and Bloomberg. Cycling was initially purely a leisure pursuit for Simone, who started out as a business journalist, but in 2015 her career focus also shifted to the sport.

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