Just in time for the start of the men's cross-country race, the wind picked up and a dark cloud front pushed its way into the valley. But contrary to the gloomy forecasts, the last XC race of the UCI Mountain Bike World Championships in Leogang was to be held in dry conditions.
The race got off to a strong start from Milan Vader (NED), who took the lead straight away and pulled the field wide apart on the starting lap with his pace. The three Frenchmen Jordan Sarrou, Titouan Carod and Victor Koretzky took up the chase. Sarrou then pushed the pace, caught up with Vader and took the lead on his own. Meanwhile, a chasing group formed behind Vader consisting of Mathias Flückiger (SUI), Luca Braidot (ITA), Carod and the Brazilian Henrique Avancini. When the 24-year-old Vader then crashed twice on technical descents, he was caught by the chasing quartet. However, Sarrou's lead was already over a minute at this point.
Flückiger strong on the mountain with waistcoat and hardtail
Fourth lap: Flückiger, who rides with a waistcoat and on a hardtail and is known to be one of the best climbers in the World Cup, made the other three suffer on the climbs. As a result, Carod almost fell out of the group and Maxime Marotte, another Frenchman, didn't get any closer. At the end of the fourth lap, Flückiger then tore a gap of seven seconds on the descent, but Avancini, Braidot and Carod closed it again by the feed zone on lap five. Next climb, same game: but this time his rivals crashed. While Braidot and Carod were still within striking distance, Avancini fell further back. As Avancini had a flat tyre, his Cannondale team-mate Maxime Marotte (FRA) slowly closed the gap from behind and passed him.
On the second climb of the fifth lap, Carod - Sarrou's team-mate at Absolute Absalon - broke away from the Italian Luca Braidot and rode back towards Flückiger. Into the sixth and final lap: Jordan Sarrou was able to finish his own race with a lead of more than a minute. Behind him, Flückiger and Carod dueled for silver. In the end, the strong climber and risk-taker from Switzerland retained the upper hand and secured the runner-up world championship title. Titouan Carod had to settle for third place, but for his team Absolute Absalon it can only be seen as a complete success: Bronze and gold in the men's race. A result that is truly worthy of racing legend Absalon. After the
Women's U23 title and the Cross-country victory in the women's category already the third gold medal on this World Championship day.
Max Brandl in 12th place
Fourth and fifth place went to Luca Braidot from Italy and Ondrej Cink from the Czech Republic, who fought his way to the front in the second half of the race. Elite newcomer Max Brandl proved to be the strongest German with twelfth place, that his good form from Nove Mesto was no flash in the pan. Strikingly, alongside some established riders, there were also many new faces to marvel at in the top 20. Filippo Colombo from Switzerland and Nadir Colledani (ITA) took seventh and eighth place, ahead of record world champion and top favourite Nino Schurter (SUI), who struggled to get to grips with the course. The Romanian U23 World Champion from 2019 Vlad Dascalu and Mirko Tabacchi (ITA) in eleventh and 15th place are also names that have not been heard very often in the World Cup so far. Incidentally, young favourite Simon Andreassen (DEN), the winner of Nove Mesto, only finished in 32nd place.
