Recently crowned Dutch road race champion Mathieu van der Poel (Corendon-Circus) took his second win in three races in the new XCC (Short Track) discipline at the Mountain Bike World Cup in Val di Sole, Italy, on Friday. Raced on a short, two-minute circuit for 25 minutes, the top-40 world ranked riders vie for World Cup points (50 per cent of the cross-country), plus the top 16 finishers start on the first two rows of Sunday's XCO race.
While the first two rounds of the XCC have been on mostly flat circuits with pavement, the Val di Sole version had no asphalt and began with a stiff climb backwards up the Downhill course, before taking the riders onto the 4-Cross circuit for a rock garden, pump track section and banked turns.
Sam Gaze (Specialized), winner of the last XCC at Nove Mesto, Czech Republic, led the field up the first climb, but he quickly fell off the pace after that as the leaders were whittled down to van der Poel, XCO world champion Nino Schurter (Scott-SRAM) and Lars Forster (BMC). Forster attacked on third of 11 laps, but was quickly brought back by the other two, and then dropped on the seventh lap when van der Poel unleashed a massive attack on the climb.
Schurter could not close the gap and lost further time through the remaining laps as van der Poel continued to pull away each time up the climb. Schurter held on for second, three seconds ahead of a chase group, with Maxime Marotte (Cannondale Factory) winning the sprint for third. Schurter remains in the lead for the overall World Cup standings, however, van der Poel has overtaken Marotte for second place.
"As I expected, it was really, really hard," said van der Poel. "Full gas on the climb, then a little bit of recovery, and then the climb was there again. Those 30 second sprints I'm good at, and I enjoyed racing it today. Sam [Gaze] started really fast and I know it hurt everyone, so on the second lap I did it again."
Langvad continues short track domination
Annika Langvad (Specialized) continued to dominate the new XCC (Short Track) discipline at the Mountain Bike World Cup, winning her third straight XCC in Val di Sole on Friday.
World champion Jolanda Neff (Kross Racing) attacked on the first climb, which proved to be a tactical error after she faded badly, only recovering at the end to finish eighth. Langvad bided her time, moving to the front with Pauline Ferrand Prevot (Canyon Factory), Alessandra Keller (Thomus-RN Racing) and Anne Tauber (Sandd American Eagle) on the fourth lap of ten, and then dropping everyone but Keller with three laps to go. A lap later she dropped Keller on the climb to solo in for victory, with Tauber finishing second and Keller third. Langvad's win padded her lead over Neff in the World Cup standings.
Get The Leadout Newsletter
The latest race content, interviews, features, reviews and expert buying guides, direct to your inbox!
"It was definitely not easy," said Langvad. "I was more nervous going into this one than the previous ones because there is pressure when you have had two wins in a row. It was different [than the previous XCCs] because it didn't come back together, so it made my strategy easier on the deciding hill. When Jolanda [Neff] attacked, I thought 'this is going to be tough', but then she completely blew on the second lap, and then Pauline [Ferrand Prevot] attacked and then [Alessandra] Keller ... it was just attack, attack, attack on that climb, and in the end it was just a question of endurance."
