Tom Pidcock showed again on Saturday that he has no problem switching from road to mountain bikes and back, seemingly at will. While Pidcock winning a race is rarely a surprise at this point, even the ever-confident Brit looked happy to get away with winning the elite men’s XCC World Cup in Crans-Montana.
On the women’s side, Puck Pieterse made her latest World Cup win look easy. In the absence of Pauline Ferrand-Prevot, the Dutch racer looked solid in her elite women’s short track win.
Pidcock battles bad start and muddy conditions
“I didn’t make it easy that’s for sure,” Pidcock said afterwards. “At the start I unclipped then I was at the back, and I was actually getting dropped on that first climb, they were going so fast.”
The Ineos rider’s struggles didn’t stop there. While trying to get through the 40-rider field to catch the leaders Pidcock lost control in the mud and crashed into another rider. While it wasn’t terribly high speeds, it looked like an awkward fall.
From there, though, it was all forward progress. Pidcock caught up to Scott-SRAM duo of Nino Schurter and Filippo Colombo.
“I got there and I was suffering and I looked around and no one was pulling faces so I thought ‘Oh God, these guys have had it easy’ but I just carried on and obviously they were suffering,” Pidcock said.
Then, he kept going. Pidcock ended up winning by two seconds ahead of Julian Schleb (Stop&Go) and Luca Braidot (Santa Cruz). Schurter would end up sixth.
Gunnar Holmgren (KMC Ridley) was the best placed Canadian in 31st. Leandré Bouchard (Forresco Holdings ProCo RL Pro Team) made the most of a late call-up to race the XCC and finished 37th.
Pieterse perfects tricky Crans-Montana course
The elite women’s race ended up being a tactical affair, with no rider able to break free of the group until the final lap. Anne Tauber (Orbea Factory Team) launched an attack through the start finish area, but it was Puck Pieterse (Alpecin-Decuninck) who would benefit. Pieterse went clear of Tauber and the rest of the field, crossing the line with enough time to celebrate, casting an imaginary fishing line before reeling in the win.
“It was very tactical, every time especially on the last part of the climb we went all in then on the descents it stayed quite together and on the road it was just looking at each other,” Pieterse said.
“I knew…
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