Canada’s cross country team waded into its first final of 2024 world championships on Wednesday in Andorra, just missing a podium finish.
Strategy for the mixed age category and gender event is always interesting, as there’s no rule about which order the juniors, men and women must go in. That left Canada fighting back towards the podium over the latter half of the race, including big anchor legs from Paris Olympic brother-sister duo Isabella and Gunnar Holmgren. That brought the Canadian team of six to just eight seconds back of the bronze medal Italian team.
The Canadian team was made up of Ian Ackert, Felix Antoine Leclair, Jenn Jackson, Rafaelle Carrier, Isabella Holmgren and Gunnar Holmgren.
The U.S. team took a very similar approach to the Canadian squad, which also left them fighting back from a few positions back. Team U.S.A. made the strategy work, seeing Christopher Blevins sprinting against the French team’s Mathias Azzaro to take gold. U.S.A. takes gold by three seconds with France and Italy rounding out the podium.
2024 UCI mountain bike world championships continues Thursday with junior downhill finals and elite downhill qualifying runs.
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