Vallnord World Cup win for Yana Belomoina

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Yana Belomoina (CST Sandd American Eagle), who a month ago won her first Elite Mountain Bike World Cup at the second round and donned the Series leader's jersey, showed on Sunday that the hiatus has not slowed her down, with another win at Round 3 on Sunday, in Vallnord, Andorra.

Vallnord, in the Principality of Andorra, in the Pyrenees mountains between France and Spain, has hosted multiple World Cups and the world championships in 2015. The course features steep climbs and technical descents, but the key difficulty for most riders is the altitude; racing at 1900 to 2000 metres, too hard an effort puts a rider into oxygen debt and they will pay for that later in the race.

In the six lap women's race, Belomoina attacked on the steepest climb during the first lap, riding the rest of the contenders off her wheel. Behind, XCO and Marathon world champion Annika Langvad (Specialized) and Gunn-Rita Dahle Flesjaa (Team Merida Gunn-Rita) rode together until Lap 5, when Langvad dropped Dahle Flesjaa to solo in for second. Dahle Flesjaa hung on for third, ahead of Linda Indergand (Focus XC), with Emily Batty (Trek Factory) taking fifth. Batty had caught and dropped Indergand but, with a less than half a lap to go, the Canadian crashed, allowing the Swiss rider to get by her.

Belomoina has now extended her lead to 640 points, with Langvad jumping from third to second with 524 points and pushing Maja Wloszczowska (Kross Racing) down to third with 480 points.

"It was a great race, a very good day for me," said Belomoina. "After winning in Albstadt [Round 2], it gave me so much motivation to keep this leader's jersey. I have a better lead now [in the overall standings], but there are still three races to go, and I hope that I can hold on to the jersey."

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