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Starts this evening...
Pidock for the win ?
Didn't realise it was this weekend, thanks for the heads up.
from the UCI website (assuming German time?)
Friday
17:30 World Cup Cross-country Short Track – Women
18:15 World Cup Cross-country Short Track – Men
Sunday
11:20 World Cup Cross-country Olympic - Women Elite - Followed by Awards
14:35 World Cup Cross-country Olympic - Men Elite - Followed by Award
This does mean I have to load up the loathsome, and highly confusing, RedBull app on the firestick.
And negotiate TV access with the family for that and the Giro! I can see a retreat to the spare room / WFH study...
you can watch on PC/Laptop or indeed phone...
I see MVdP is on the start list as well as the usuals - Schurter, Cink, Flueckiger, Avancini, etc.
On a tangent, but why do we never see the top CX riders having a go? Iserbyt, VanThourenHout, Toon, etc. What are they doing all summer? Apart from Quinten Hermans who's doing really well this year and Lucinda Brand on the road, I don't see them much.
Eli Iserbyt seems to race on the roads, doesn't set the world on fire
https://www.procyclingstats.com/rider/eli-iserbyt
see MVdP is on the start list as well as the usuals
he's not, he starts the Giro today
Great post, I think there's one next weekend as well?
Nino's found som form so it'll be interesting to see how he goes with Pidcock, because one more win makes him the GOAT.
Evie's coming back from illness so hopefully she can get back in the mix.
MVDP is racing the giro which starts today, so he shouldn't be on the albstadt start list. Pidcock is racing albstadt though
Seems that Iserbyt has raced XCO this year and came 3rd in Turkey.
https://www.uci.org/competition-details/2022/MTB/66614
I assume that's a sort of 'pro-conti' level below the full World Cup schedule then.
I got MVDP's name from a list on pinkbike so assume it was just an early provisional entry hedging his bets.
On a tangent, but why do we never see the top CX riders having a go?
CX is a long hard season.
If they did want a summer calendar too, one day road racing is probably going to suit most of them more, and be more financially lucrative.
Albstadt is a dull course to watch so I doubt I'll bother. Interested to see how Pidcock gets on..
"I assume that’s a sort of ‘pro-conti’ level below the full World Cup schedule then."
It wasn't exactly a stacked field. I watch world cup racing quite a bit and I don't recognise anyone below the top three.
On a tangent, but why do we never see the top CX riders having a go? Iserbyt, VanThourenHout, Toon, etc.
Not all of them have the team / backing / budget to make it worthwhile, or saying that, even the desire. They're pure CX racers pulling in very reasonable amounts of cash from racing and winning CX and use the odd UCI level road race they enter as training and conditioning.
The likes of Pidcock, VdP, WvA and Brand, Perot and Evie are very rare commodities who all appear to have come along at the same time.
I personally think that if Pidders wins the world title in XCO this year that'll be it as there's no way he can combine the kind of "off season" training for his GC aspirations with racing XC as well. Look at VdP, that crash at the Olympics could've ended it all.
Some people mentioning CX riders; well there are 3 current CX World Champions riding this weekend: Pidcock, Pieterse women's U23, and Christian men's Junior.
There's also former World Champions; Iserbyt, Van Empel, Ronhaar. Tomorrow's women's U23 has 5 of the top 10 from the U23 CX Worlds.
Then you've got MTB-ers who have been World Champions in CX; PF-P (Elite) and Evie (twice U23).
I think it's great to see more CX riders trying their hand at XC; but it's not for everyone; the climbs are longer, and it's far more technical - having a good engine isn't enough.
Seems more often that high level XC racers appear on the start list of cx races, but then its probabably easier to fit the odd cx race into an xc off-season to keep things spicy.
Yes, and there's the new rule that if you have a Top 10 ranking in another discipline, you get a better start position - as opposed to starting at the back like used to be. It was brought in the other season in CX, and Neff started from the 4th row in Waterloo, despite missing 2 years of CX.
I think it's a good idea, and may encourage some riders to give another discipline a go, which has got to be good.
Anyone know the exact time of races ? i've got to pick my lad up later so don't know whether to watch semi-live or wait till later for replay.
Weeks you forgot to tell us those were the German times...... back one hour for UK.
All I know is that xcc makes me want to ride my bike really, really fast. Might wear baggies though. World Cup weekends are the Catalina Wine Mixer; simply awesome.
looked like Pidcock was sniffing out the inside line on the whoops for most of the race but then got shut out when it mattered.
Hopefully he just ended up using XCC to get the lay of the land and we'll see him put in a good one tomorrow. I'm still a big Nino fan though
Didn't look like Gaze needed anyone to wait for him today 😉
It looked to me like Pidcock thought about having a go and then thought better of it and just made sure of a front row for Sunday. It started to get quite physical at the front and Pidcock is half the size of most of them.
Pidcock crashed at the end of lap 8. Got back up and managed to salvage 8th place.
Ah, thanks. I wondered why he dropped several places
TP's fall came up on his IG story, mid turn fall on tarmac, hopped back on pretty quick but lost places. Quite a tidy fall actually.
That's a shame he fell, would have been nice to see a ding ding between him and Gaze on that last lap
Pidcock crashed at the end of lap 8
Right, when I watched I thought he'd punctured as he dropped back quite quickly, but when I saw him again he looked fine so I thought maybe a miss shift or he had just backed off. Makes a lot of sense
Under 23 races were today
Results:
U23 Women (4 Laps)
1st. Line Burquier: 1:07:48
2nd. Puck Pieterse: +1:00
3rd. Sofie Pedersen: +1:39
4th. Olivia Onesti: +2:29
5th. Giada Specia: +3:46
U23 Men (5 Laps)
1st. Martin Vidaurre Kossmann: 1:10:01
2nd. Gustavo Xavier De Oliveira Pereira: +37
3rd. Dario Lillo: +43
4th. Luca Schatti: +56
5th. Simon Walter: +57
Cata Blanca Vass who races CX and Road and came 4th in Olympic MTB had a great 1st Elite XCC yesterday/ Front row start for Sunday for her first Elite XCO.
Eli Iserbyt is in his first Season as an XC racer and starts tomorrow. Aiming I think for Olympic 2024 inclusion in Belgian Team. Dan Soete long time Belgian CX racer races MTB most years and is also on the start line tomorrow.
Current French Nat CX Champ Line Burquier is dominating U23 womens MTB this year and won by over a minute today ahead of Puck Pietrse the current U23 CX world Champion. Ceylin del Carman Alvarado also races MTB but currently has an injured hand I believe.
Just a reminder, the women riders have started lining up.
Enjoyed this today but red bull app on Sky box completely refused to work. Had to watch both men's and women's by casting from phone.
A good race in the men's race for second place.