Over the past few days, the mountain bike racing elite in downhill and cross-country battled for the last time in the 2021 season for podium places and points in the Mercedes-Benz UCI MTB World Cups. As in 2019, the World Cup final took place in Snowshoe in West Virginia took place. Favourites such as Flückiger, Koretzky, Avancini and the entire Scott-Sram team were thwarted by flat tyres.
In the end, short track champion Christopher Blevins won the final and became the first American since 1994 (Tinker Juarez was the last US winner) won a World Cup in the men's category. And in front of a home crowd. Legendary! Second place went to the young Romanian Vlad Dascalu, while third place went to Ondrej Cink from the Czech Republic. Nino Schurter finished fourth despite a flat tyre on the last kilometre. Mathias Flückiger had already secured the overall World Cup victory in the short track race on Friday. Viktor Koretzky and Ondrej Cink finished second and third in the overall standings. Luca Schwarzbauer from the Lexware team rode an impressive race as the best German. In the absence of his team-mate Max Brandl, Schwarzbauer finished in sixth place, narrowly missing out on the podium.
Nadine Rieder finishes in the top 10
The newly crowned world champion Evie Richards dominated the women's race. The Briton rode consistently to victory. Australian Rebecca McConnell finished in second place. Third place went to Anne Tauber from the Netherlands. Sina Frei from Switzerland finished in fourth place. Nadine Rieder was the best German to finish in the top 10 for the first time in her career. Loana Lecomte secured the overall World Cup victory, although the 22-year-old was unable to compete in Snwoshoe due to a cold. Evie Richards collected plenty of points with her victory and finished second overall. Third place in the overall standings went to the Swede Jenny Rissveds.
Downhill: Höll and Bruni win in Snowshoe
Vali Höll won in Snowshoe just ahead of Frenchwoman Marine Cabirou, securing her second success in the elite class three days after her first World Cup victory. Multi-talented Camille Balanche came third. Tahnée Seagrave finished behind the Swiss athlete. Germany's Nina Hoffmann rode strongly after her crash in the first race and finished fifth.
In the men's race, the times were close together. In the end, Loic Bruni came out on top and won by just 0.4 seconds ahead of Australian Troy Brosnan. Third place went to Angel Suarez from Spain. Amaury Pierron and Luca Shaw finished in fourth and fifth place respectively.
