Day 3 of competition at the 2022 UCI Mountain Bike World Championships concluded on Friday evening in Les Gets, France, with the crowd-pleasing XCC. French fans had even more reason to be pleased, with their own Pauline Ferrand-Prévot winning the women’s world title, while Sam Gaze of New Zealand took the men’s world title.
Only in its second year as a rainbow jersey event, the Short Track runs for 20 minutes of extreme effort on a cross country circuit. The Les Gets circuit featured off-camber switchback climbs and multiple rock gardens to test the riders.
The women’s race quickly came down to a core group of nine riders, with no one willing to attack too early. Rain began falling halfway through the race, making the grass corners and the rocks slippery.
Ferrand Prévot sat consistently in the top-4 but out of the lead, until the seventh lap (of nine), when she attacked aggressively, opening a gap of 15 seconds on the chasers. Greta Seiwald (Italy) and Annie Last (Great Britain) led the early chase but faded, and no one else could close the gap, as Ferrand-Prévot cruised into victory. Alessandra Keller (Switzerland) took silver, 18 seconds back, with Gwendalyn Gibson (USA) finishing third at 21 second back.
“It’s crazy, you know, I can’t believe it,” said Ferrand-Prévot about winning before a home crowd. “I saw that [the course] was not super fast, so I just wanted to stay on wheels. I had to wait, wait, but with three laps to go I made an attack and went full gas. I was able to make a gap and I tried to keep a good pace but be smooth on the rock gardens. I was feeling good in the last few days, so now it is one more gold medal in the pocket. I’m really happy.”
‘A dream come true’ says Gaze
The rain had stopped by the time…
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