Lopes wins eliminator cross country

American Brian Lopes took a convincing win at the first mountain bike eliminator UCI World Cup in Houffalize, Belgium, giving him World Cup victories in three disciplines - dual slalom, four cross and now eliminator.

Lopes was untouchable in the men's competition, bursting down the start ramp and opening bike lengths before the riders even hit the climb. He qualified first and then won every heat. He would lose ground a bit on the climb, but then open it back up on the descent.

Two favourites that did not make through qualifying were the Cannondale Factory team duo of Manuel Fumic and Marco Fontana. Fumic crashed on the descent, while Fontana slipped out of his pedal early on the climb, landing on his top tube.

For the final, Lopes was joined by three relatively unknown riders - Daniel Federspiel (Notebooksbilliger.de), Simon Gegenheimer (Ultra Sports Rose) and Severin Disch (Thoemus Racing). Again Lopes got a strong start, however, he lost some ground on the first corner of the climb when he had to put his foot down. It made no difference, as he soon opened up a gap again to cruise to the win, followed by Federspiel, Gegenheimer and Disch.

"Oh, I am just happy," said Lopes. "I have been training a few months for these things and it is nice when you put in a lot of hard work and it pays off. I didn't think at 40 years old I'd be racing World Cups again, but I'm back. It's nice to get a victory.

"I've been racing BMX, four cross and so on since I was four years old and my specialty has always been getting a good start, getting out in front. I gotta be honest, I was a little worried with this course, a lot of climbing, a lot more climbing in it than I was training for and a lot different than the previous test events. So when I got a little tweet message from [cross country rider] Todd Wells a few days ago, he was like 'I hope you lost some weight, cuz your gonna have to do a lotta climbing on this course', and I was like 'Whooo, we'll see. Hope I lost enough weight for yah buddy!'"