MTB World Cup 2021 – 2 – Nove Mesto [FULL RACE – XCO]

May 16, 2021

MTB World Cup 2021 – 2 – ME XCO – Nove Mesto

The UCI Mountain Bike World Cup is a multi-round mountain bike racing series that is sanctioned by the Union Cycliste Internationale. The first World Cup series – which was composed of cross-country events – was held in 1989. The Downhill World Cup was inaugurated two years later, and the Dual Slalom World Cup was launched in 1998. The dual-slalom format – which involved knock-out heats with two riders on the parallel courses in each heat – evolved into four-cross (with four riders on a single course per heat) in 2002 before being dropped after the 2011 season. Riders win points according to their placing in each event. The reigning series leaders in each class are identified by a special jersey.

Tom Pidcock (Ineos Grenadiers) said “I was born to mountain bike”, and he certainly backed that statement up with a dominant performance on Sunday at Round 2 of the XCO World Cup in Nove Mesto, Czech Republic.

Pidcock rode the best mountain bikers in the world off his wheel to beat Mathieu van der Poel (Alpecin-Fenix) by a minute. Mathias Flueckiger (Thomus RN Swiss Bike) took third, while world number-one Nino Schurter (Scott-SRAM) was seventh.

Van der Poel takes the leader’s jersey for the series, 80 points ahead of Pidcock.

Rain through the week made the normally-dry Nove Mesto course muddy and slippery, with riders having to run many uphill rooty sections that are usually rideable. The course was gradually drying through the race, but almost every rider went down at some point on the roots. The men did a start loop plus six laps.

Van der Poel had his normal fast start, with World Cup leader Victor Koretzky (KMC-Orbea) joining him at the front and Schurter, Pidcock, local favourite Ondrej Cink (Kross Orlen) and Flueckiger close behind. Koretzky was struggling with the pace and quickly went backwards, eventually finishing a distant 24th and losing the leader’s jersey to van der Poel.

The pace van der Poel was setting shredded the field, with only his road and cyclo-cross rival Pidcock able to stay with him. The duo rode away from Cink and Flueckiger, with Schurter fading behind them, and stayed together until the third lap, when Pidcock did the same thing to his rival – just rode away on a climb, setting the only sub-12 minute lap of the race (twice).

By the end of the lap, Pidcock had 30 seconds on van der Poel, who was about to get caught by Flueckiger. A lap later, at the start of the fifth lap, Pidcock’s gap was 1:18, and Flueckiger was starting to gap van der Poel on the climbs. However, the Dutch rider made a surge late in the lap to catch and drop his Swiss rival, eventually finishing one minute behind Pidcock, with Flueckiger a further 15 seconds back.

Pidcock’s World Cup win was the first by a British man since Gary Foord in 1994 at Mammoth Lake, California.

“Honestly, I think I was born to do mountain biking,” said Pidcock after his historic win. “It sounds stupid, but it’s what I have done since I was little and what I’ve enjoyed the most. So coming here and winning an elite World Cup in my first attempt on an equal playing field [after starting at the back of the field the week previously] is pretty insane.”

Pidcock is still on the bubble about an Olympic spot, since he has to wait for the final Olympic nation rankings to come out and see if Great Britain gets a spot, but he’s optimistic.

“I’ll take a break now and then build hopefully towards the Olympics. I think I’ve shown what I can do on a mountain bike.”

Van der Poel, who said coming into the first two World Cups that he wasn’t at ‘100 per cent’ after the cyclo-cross and early road seasons, said he was happy with second.

“I’m happy, because it is already better than last week [seventh]. I was good at my own pace, but I had no response when Tom attacked; he was really strong today, so I’m happy that I could ride to second place,” Van der Poel said.

“I didn’t really have the feeling that I was burning myself out [in the opening laps], it’s just that when Tom accelerated on the steepest climb… he’s very light and I could just go at my own pace but not follow his attack. I hope it will come soon. I rode a pretty steady second half of the race, so I’m happy with that, and with some more training I hope to be at my top level in a few months.”

Results :
1 Thomas Pidcock (Great Britain) 1:20:55
2 Mathieu Van der Poel (Netherlands) 0:01:00
3 Mathias Flueckiger (Switzerland) 0:01:15
4 Ondřej Cink (Czech Republic) 0:02:00
5 Jordan Sarrou (France) 0:02:21
6 Alan Hatherly (South Africa) 0:02:28
7 Nino Schurter (Switzerland) 0:03:04
8 Anton Cooper (New Zealand) 0:03:14
9 Titouan Carod (France) 0:03:37
10 Thomas Griot (France) 0:03:51
11 Sebastian Fini Carstensen (Denmark) 0:04:11
12 Bartlomiej Wawak (Poland) 0:04:38
13 Luca Braidot (Italy) 0:04:48
14 Milan Vader (Netherlands) 0:04:55
15 David Valero Serrano (Spain) 0:04:58
16 Joshua Dubau (France) 0:05:05
17 Vlad Dascalu (Romania) 0:05:11
18 Nadir Colledani (Italy) 0:05:14
19 Leandre Bouchard (Canada)
20 Christopher Blevins (United States Of America) 0:05:25
21 Antoine Philipp (France) 0:05:31
22 Thomas Litscher (Switzerland) 0:05:49
23 Henrique Avancini (Brazil) 0:06:08
24 Victor Koretzky (France) 0:06:10
25 Pierre De Froidmont (Belgium)
26 Lukas Flückiger (Switzerland) 0:06:11
27 Vital Albin (Switzerland) 0:06:17
28 Lars Forster (Switzerland) 0:06:28
29 Jofre Cullell Estape (Spain) 0:06:33
30 Anton Sintsov (Russian Federation) 0:06:45
31 Gioele Bertolini (Italy) 0:06:50
32 Maxime Marotte (France) 0:06:56
33 Mirko Tabacchi (Italy) 0:07:03
34 Jens Schuermans (Belgium) 0:07:12
35 Marcel Guerrini (Switzerland) 0:07:17
36 Samuel Gaze (New Zealand) 0:07:20
37 Manuel Fumic (Germany) 0:07:21
38 Gerhard Kerschbaumer (Italy) 0:07:24
39 Luca Schwarzbauer (Germany) 0:07:30
40 Julian Schelb (Germany) 0:07:34
41 Ismael Esteban Aguero (Spain) 0:07:36
42 Jose Gerardo Ulloa Arevalo (Mexico) 0:07:39
43 Reto Indergand (Switzerland)
44 Peter Disera (Canada) 0:07:40
45 Sergio Mantecon Gutierrez (Spain)
46 Karl Markt (Austria) 0:07:48
47 Martins Blums (Latvia)
48 Stephane Tempier (France) 0:07:51
49 Sean Fincham (Canada) 0:08:02
50 Niklas Schehl (Germany) 0:08:04
51 Jan Vastl (Czech Republic) 0:08:11
52 Simon Andreassen (Denmark) 0:08:18
53 Jan Škarnitzl (Czech Republic) 0:08:23
54 Catriel Soto (Argentina) 0:08:36
55 Gregor Raggl (Austria) 0:08:44
56 Luiz Henrique Cocuzzi (Brazil) 0:08:47
57 Daan Soete (Belgium)
58 Keegan Swenson (United States Of America) 0:08:53
59 Andrew L’Esperance (Canada)
60 Andri Frischknecht (Switzerland) 0:09:07
61 Dmytro Titarenko (Ukraine) 0:09:11
62 Jonas Lindberg (Denmark) 0:09:20
63 Marc Andre Fortier (Canada) 0:09:34
64 Erik Hægstad (Norway) 0:09:57
65 Thibault Daniel (France) 0:09:58
66 Georg Egger (Germany) 0:10:01
67 Simon Vitzthum (Switzerland) 0:10:03
68 Andrin Beeli (Switzerland) 0:10:27
69 Krzysztof Lukasik (Poland) 0:10:52
70 Pablo Rodriguez Guede (Spain) 0:11:27
71 Hugo Drechou (France)
72 Basile Allard (France)
73 Emil Lindgren (Sweden)
74 Emil Hasund Eid (Norway)
75 Guilherme Gotardelo Muller (Brazil)
76 Ben Oliver (New Zealand)
77 Mário Costa (Portugal)
78 Tyler Orschel (Canada)
79 Shlomi Haimy (Israel)
80 Bruno Vitali (Switzerland)
81 Josef Jelínek (Czech Republic)
82 Ivan Filatov (Russian Federation)
83 Maxime Loret (France)
84 Matej Ulik (Slovakia)
85 Nick Burki (Switzerland)
86 Clément Auvin (France)
87 Filip Helta (Poland)
88 Quinton Disera (Canada)
89 Dimitrios Antoniadis (Greece)
90 Frazer Clacherty (Great Britain)
91 Nicolas Delich Pardo (Chile)
92 Luis Neff (Germany)
93 Raphael Auclair (Canada)
94 Pierre-geoffroy Plantet (France)
95 Fabian Giger (Switzerland)
96 Ulan Bastos Galinski (Brazil)
97 Fabio Hernando Castañeda Monsalve (Colombia)
98 Tomáš Paprstka (Czech Republic)
99 Martin Haring (Slovakia)
100 Daniel Mcconnell (Australia)
101 Rok Naglič (Slovenia)
102 Kohei Yamamoto (Japan)
103 Joris Ryf (Switzerland)
104 Cole Paton (United States Of America)
105 Jhonatan Botero Villegas (Colombia)
106 András Parti (Hungary)
107 Silas Graf (Germany)
108 Alex Bregenzer (Germany)
109 Moritz Bscherer (Austria)
110 Florian Trigo (France)
111 Sebastian Miranda Maldonado (Chile)
112 Tomáš Ševců (Czech Republic)
113 Gioele De Cosmo (Italy)
114 Timofei Ivanov (Russian Federation)
115 Oleksandr Koniaiev (Ukraine)
116 Sam De Nijs (Netherlands)
117 Kevin Krieg (Switzerland)
118 Karol Ostaszewski (Poland)
119 David Bártek (Czech Republic)
120 Sascha Weber (Germany)
121 Alexandre Vialle (Canada)
122 Arthur Tropardy (France)
123 Lorenzo Serres (France)
124 Raphael Gagne (Canada)
125 Tim Feinauer (Germany)
126 Felix Belhumeur (Canada)
127 Rob Vanden Haesevelde (Belgium)
128 Florian Wimmer (Austria)
129 Zdeněk Vobecký (Czech Republic)
130 Tristan De Lange (Namibia)
131 Ede-karoly Molnar (Romania)
132 Fabian Costa (Austria)
133 Wim De Bruin (Netherlands)
134 Periklis Ilias (Greece)
135 Gregor Dimic (Slovenia)
136 Charoun Molla Amet ali Oglou (Greece)
137 Lucian Logigan (Romania)
138 Pau Romero Barcelo (Spain)
139 Abdulkadir Kelleci (Turkey)
140 Serdar Depe (Turkey)
141 George-vlad Sabau (Romania)
DNF Ursin Spescha (Switzerland)
DNF Matthias Stirnemann (Switzerland)
DNF Maximilian Foidl (Austria)
DNF Maximilian Brandl (Germany)