Laura Stigger (Specialized Factory Racing) and Jordan Sarrou (Team BMC) enjoyed epic battles to take their debut elite wins in the Snowshoe Olympic Cross Country.
Stigger led for more than half of a spirited six-lap USA race to hold off a determined chasing group.
Alpecin-Deceuninck’s Puck Pieterse’s sixth place was enough to secure her the 2023 UCI Mountain Bike Cross-Country Olympic World Cup title giving her an unassailable lead ahead of the final round.
But the race victory in a sunny Snowshoe was all Stigger’s as the Austrian ground out a gap to a group of four going into the third lap. The 23-year-old’s lead went out to nearly 40 seconds until France’s Leona Lecomte (Canyon CLLCTV) launched a gutsy fightback narrowing the gap to 23 seconds by the finish.
Italy’s Martina Berta (Santa Cruz Rockshox Pro Team) came in third after riding away from a group that included Pieterse. Pieterse’s closest rival in the title race, Mona Mitterwallner (Cannondale Factory Racing) crossed the line in 10th position.
Jordan Sarrou (Team BMC) outsprinted Nino Schurter (Scott-SRAM MTB Racing Team) to take the win in an insanely tight men’s elite race after seven laps where the race lead went back and forth time and again.
The Frenchman was out front from lap five after leader on lap four World Champion Tom Pidcock (Ineos Grenadiers) had two front punctures and Luca Schwarzbauer (Canyon CLLCTV) who was pushing the pace up front ahead of Sarrou was slowed up by a rear flat. The Frenchman then managed to get away solo and eke out a gap. Sarrou was then caught on the final lap by Schurter and Marcel Guerrini (Bixs Performance Race Team) to set up the final sprint which the Frenchman timed to perfection to deny Schurter his 36th World Cup win. Guerrini came across the line in third. Matthias Flückiger (Thömus Maxon) was fourth and Pidcock managed to battle back to round out the podium in fifth.
Schurter retains the leader’s jersey going into the final round in Canada next weekend.
In the U23 women’s race, World Champion Samara Maxwell (Rockrider Ford Racing Team) was in impressive form taking the win by more than a minute from Ronja Blöchlinger (Liv Factory Racing).
The pair had ridden away from the field on lap one of five but the Kiwi - who secured a deal with Rockrider Ford team this week - gapped her Swiss rival on lap two and never looked back.
Ginia Caluori (Thömus Akros - Youngstars) was third after battling for much of the race with Noëlle Buri (Bixs Performance race Team) who came in fourth. Swiss rider Calouri’s performance was all the more impressive for being on a borrowed bike with her’s currently lost in transit.
Blöchlinger takes the series lead from Sofie Heby Pedersen (Wilier-Pirelli Factory Team XCO) who finished in 25th.
In the U23 men it was a powerful win for Carter Woods (Giant Factory Off-Road Team-XC). Canadian Woods and series leader Adrien Boichis (Trinity Racing MTB) managed to splinter off the front of the race on the first lap of six and extend their lead to almost a minute by the final lap.
The pair traded blows all race but it was Boichis who launched first in what would be the race’s defining moment. He went around Woods in an all-out attack in the second half of lap six but Woods had the legs to respond and passed the Frenchman to hold a five-second gap to the finish. The USA’s Riley Amos gave the home fans reason to cheer by coming in around 55 seconds behind Woods in third. Boichis retains the overall series lead. He’s currently ahead of Woods by 160 points with 165 available in Mont-Sainte-Anne.
Full results are available here
The cross-country athletes will be back in action in Mont-Sainte-Anne, Canada at the eighth and final round of the UCI Mountain Bike World Cup. The U23 Short-Track will kick off the weekend for the endurance riders on Thursday, October 5. More details of the schedule here
