Greg Minnar
Greg Minnar
Mtb World Cup gathering momentum
fizik

The mountain bike World Cup season is gathering great momentum with two fixtures back-to-back in the coming two weekends.

After the first three rounds of downhill – at Maribor, Slovenia, then Fort William, Scotland and most recently Leogang, Austria – and the first two rounds of cross-country – at Albstadt, Germany and Nové Město, Czech Republic – the two major World Cup disciplines of mountain bike racing come together for their remaining five fixtures.

This weekend’s meeting is at Vallnord, Andorra – a classic setting for both codes, which features regularly on the UCI World Cup calendar.

 

DOWNHILL

With Santa Cruz Syndicate’s Luca Shaw suffering a collarbone injury and Greg Minnaar’s slow start at a bruising opening round in Maribor, round 2 at Fort William saw Loris Vergier take a fine third place with Minnaar sixth. All the riders are equipped with Gobi and Tundra saddles.

Greg-Minnar-Leogang

The campaign’s momentum is building: Minnaar took a fine second place in Leogang, just 0.3sec behind triple World Champion Loic Bruni. Luca Shaw returned to racing with a ninth place showing his recuperation is on track. Minnaar and Vergier are fifth and sixth in the World Cup standings after three rounds.

The Vallnord DH course is high profile, high altitude and high speed – and becomes increasingly loose and technical. Less than 200km from their Barcelona base, Team UNNO know it well.

Minnaar has multiple strong results here (including a World Championships silver medal) but no win. 2018 saw high drama for Santa Cruz Syndicate riders: Shaw looked set for first but crashed out, handing the win to Vergier for his maiden Elite World Cup victory.

 

CROSS-COUNTRY

With cross-country teams riding on Tundra and Gobi saddles we’ve already seen some gutsy and successful rides at the first two meetings, in both the Olympic distance (XCO) main race and short course (XCC).

Bianchi Countervail’s Stephane Tempier hit the top 10 in Germany in both the XCO and XCC. Nadir Colledani and Chiara Teocchi have both been consistently scoring good points.

Team-Bianchi-Countervail

Superior XC Team’s Linda Indergand backed up an amazing fourth in the Albstadt XCC with sixth in Nové Město XCC and XCO.

Perhaps the most pleasing performance so far is Ondřej Cink of Kross Racing Team finishing on the XCO podium with a fine fifth position at his home race, Nové Město.

A fast course and fine weather in Andorra la Vella look set to get this double-header off to a great start on 5-7 July.

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