Cross-country Olympic (XCO) UCI World Champion and Olympic Champion Nino Schurter was back to his winning ways in Vallnord – Pal Arinsal with his first World Cup victory of the season. He beat fellow Swiss Mathias Flückiger in a finishing sprint, with winner of the short track (XCC), Brazilian Henrique Avancini coming in for third, 10 seconds back. The Netherlands’ Mathieu Van der Poel, with two World Cup XCC victories and one in XCO sat out the Andorra round and loses his overall lead, slipping to third behind the two Swiss athletes. A first-ever victory in the women’s XCO for the Netherlands’ Anne Terpstra, who finished with a comfortable 38s win over Switzerland’s Jolanda Neff.
UCI World Champions dominated the downhill competitions with Frenchman Loïc Bruni taking his third victory of the season and Great Britain’s Rachel Atherton clinching the women’s win. In the Men Elite competition, only third -placed Australian Brosnan disturbed the French domination in Vallnord: Loris Vergier recorded the second fastest time and Amaury Pierron came in fourth. In the Women Elite, Atherton was joined on the podium by France’s Marine Cabirou (2nd) and Australian Tracey Hannah.
5 - 7 July | Salzburg (AUT)
The opening round of the 2019 UCI Trials World Cup saw thrilling finals that were full of suspense up until the last section. The revelation of the Salzburg event was 15-year-old Vera Baron in the Women Elite category. The Spanish teenager is in the World Cup leader’s jersey after beating three-time UCI World Champion Nina Reichenbach. Spain also dominated the Men’s 20” finals which saw four Spanish riders and one each from Germany and Austria battle for honours in the final. Victory eventually went to Junior 2018 UCI World Champion Alejandro Montalvo (Spain), already a force to be reckoned with in the Elite ranks. UCI World Champion Jack Carthy won the Men’s 26” competition ahead of two Frenchmen Nicolas Vallée and Vincent Hermance. The new rules, already in force at the UCI World Championships the last two years, based on the accumulation of points across the five sections, led to particularly intense competition in Salzburg. The atmosphere was electric in the Austrian city, which turned on the sun most of the weekend except Sunday morning when some rain threw in an extra challenge for the competitors.
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