MTB – XCO – World Cup 2024 – 7 – Lake Placid [FULL RACE]

September 29, 2024

MTB – XCO – World Cup 2024 ME – 7 – Lake Placid, USA 🇺🇸

Cross-country Olympic, named because it’s the only format of mountain biking included in the Olympics, sees a big pack of riders take on laps of a natural, challenging track. The laps themselves can vary from 3km to 10km in length, and the number will vary, but the races will always be around 90 minutes for men and women. The track itself is designed to test the rider’s full range of abilities over a mixture of terrain: singletracks, dirt, grass, sand, rocks and some tarmac. Courses have many obstacles to negotiate – artificial and natural – and often incorporate ramps, berms, jumps, drops and rock gardens. As well as the features, there will be climbs and descents to deal with,

It was the perfect weekend of racing for Victor Koretzky (Specialized Factory Racing), with the French rider on Sunday adding victory in the cross-country Olympic (XCO) race at the Lake Placid round of the Whoop UCI Mountain Bike World Series to Saturday’s short-track win.

Koretzky, the short-track world champion, claimed his second victory in as many days in a sprint to the line from a group of five, with recently-crowned XCO world champion Alan Hatherly (Cannondale Factory Racing) coming second despite having to fight back from a rear flat halfway through the eight lap race in the United States.

Filippo Colombo (Scott-SRAM), who was leading through the final corners, came third while it was Swiss compatriots Marcel Guerrini (BIXS Performance Race Team) and Mathias Flückiger (Thömus maxon) in fourth and fifth. Home-nation favourite Christopher Blevins (Specialized Factory Racing) was sixth.

“Doing a double win on one weekend is always difficult because you need to stay motivated and to keep going,” said Koretzky. “Today the weather was a bit high, and it was almost impossible to know who was the strongest. I rode super patient all race because it was super-fast.”

Hatherly’s fight back to second place, despite dropping around 30 positions mid-race due to the flat, helped strengthen his position at the head of the overall series ahead of the final round in Mont-Sainte-Anne, Canada, which runs from October 4-6.

The South African leads the standings with 1378 points, 259 points ahead of the now second-placed Koretzky and 293 points ahead of Colombo. With 330 points up for grabs in the final round, the pair are the only two with a chance of moving Hatherly away from that top spot overall.

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