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June 20/08 2:38 am - MTB World Championships: U23 Men XC photos, report and full results


Posted by Editoress on 06/20/08
 

MTB World Championships Val di Sole, Italy

Coverage brought to you with the assistance of Velirium

Photos

Nino Schurter ended the Swiss drought of three days at the Mountain Bike World Championships by regaining the Under-23 men's title he relinquished last year to Jakob Fuglsang of Denmark. The six lap race was down to two men by the middle of the first lap - Schurter and this year's breakthrough rider, Burry Stander (South Africa). Canada's Raphael Gagne lived up to the promise he had made to the Quebec media of a top-ten finish by scoring a very impressive seventh place.

Schurter and Stander have been the class of the U-23 field all season, finishing on the podium at World Cups against elite riders. The duo looked like they were in a two-up time trial as they came through the finish line at the end of the opening lap. The pair had a gap of 11 seconds on Matthias Fluckiger (Switzerland), with a group led by Stephane Tempier (France) already 25 seconds down.

The pair seemed content to work together for the first four laps, opening a gap of nearly two and a half minutes on Fluckiger by this point, with the rest of the field at least a minute further back and fading. After swapping the front for nearly three quarters of the race, Schurter decided it was time to go, attacking twice in the second half of lap five before dropping his South African rival for good. Starting the final lap, he had 24 seconds on Stander, which was extended to 41 by the finish. Fluckiger came in a distant third, 3:46 down.

Gagne started out slower, at his own pace to finish the first lap in 13th place, a position he held onto for the second lap before beginning to start a move forward. In the second half of the race he really began to drive, jumping from 11th at the end of lap four to seventh in the fifth lap, when he joined a group of five looking to contest sixth place.

"I think I did my most intelligent race of the season, and even since the last Worlds. A lot guys started too fast, with the heat and the steep climbs here. I started at my pace and I kept it for the whole race; I think my lap times were almost all the same."

"My strategy was to start not too far back, and make up some spaces on the descent, because that is more my strength, and then hammer some more in the second half of the race."

"In the fifth lap we caught them, myself and the Netherlands rider [ Frank Beemer], so there were five of us. No one wanted to work except me and the Swiss guy [Pascal Meyer]. The guy from Argentina [Dario Alejandro Gasco] attacked, and I couldn't respond, he was too strong at climbing. But on the last long climb I just opened the machine, even though I was cramping, I went as hard as I could and got a gap, and then sprinted into the finish."

"The last two Worlds I had problems, so this is almost the only [international] result I have in the world for the last three years. I'm super happy about that."

Injury List update: DH rider Charles-Alexandre Dube will not compete in tomorrow's event as he crashed during the seeding run yesterday.

U23 Men - 34.9km
1. Nino Schurter (Switzerland)1:44:34
2. Burry Stander (South Africa)at 0:41
3. Matthias Flückiger (Switzerland)3:46
4. Fabian Giger (Switzerland)4:54
5. Stéphane Tempier (France)5:55
6. Dario Alejandro Gasco (Argentina)8:26
7. Raphael Gagne (Canada)8:46
8. Frank Beemer (Netherlands)9:00
9. Pascal Meyer (Switzerland)9:22
10. Robert Gehbauer (Austria)9:50
11. Marc Colom (France)10:32
12. Bjorn Brems (Belgium)10:40
13. Maxime Marotte (France)11:25
14. Alexis Vuillermoz (France)11:30
15. Rotem Ishai (Israel)11:32
16. Piotr Brzozka (Poland)12:19
17. Dries Govaerts (Belgium)12:32
18. Jan Skarnitzl (Czech Republic)12:38
19. Alexander Wetterhall (Sweden)13:23
20. Jelmer Jubbega (Netherlands)13:41
21. Connor Mcconvey (Ireland)13:44
22. Lachlan Norris (Australia)14:06
23. Johannes Schweiggl (Italy)14:36
24. Catriel Andres Soto (Argentina)15:07
25. Ken Onodera (Japan)15:19
26. Renay Groustra (South Africa)16:01
27. Ian Bibby (Great Britain)16:09
28. Rob Vangenechten (Belgium)16:20
29. Alessio Zamuner (Italy)16:38
30. Niels Wubben (Netherlands)16:52
31. Periklis Ilias (Greece)18:39
32. Denis Vorontsov (Russian Federation)19:24
33. Cristian Cominelli (Italy)19:39
34. Shlomi Haimy (Israel)20:35
35. Martin Kostelnicak (Slovakia)-1Lap
36. Nieck Busser (Netherlands)-1Lap
37. David Joao Serralheiro Rosa (Portugal)-1Lap
38. Irjan Luttenberg (Netherlands)-1Lap
39. Anders Hovdenes (Norway)-1Lap
40. Ola Kjören (Norway)-1Lap
41. Tim Allen (United States Of America)-1Lap
42. Henrique Avancini (Brazil)-1Lap
43. Tim Wijnants (Belgium)-1Lap
44. Adrian Brzozka (Poland)-1Lap
45. Hans Becking (Netherlands)-1Lap
46. Samuele Porro (Italy)-1Lap
47. Ross Creber (Great Britain)-1Lap
48. Patrik Gallati (Switzerland)-1Lap
49. Paul Van Der Ploeg (Australia)-1Lap
50. Yu Takenouchi (Japan)-1Lap
51. Martin Skopek (Slovakia)-1Lap
52. Josef Kamler (Czech Republic)-1Lap
53. Uwe Hochenwarter (Austria)-1Lap
54. Felix Euteneuer (Germany)-1Lap
55. Guillaume Vinit (France)-1Lap
56. Umberto Corti (Italy)-1Lap
57. David Fletcher (Great Britain)-2Laps
58. Heiko Gutmann (Germany)-2Laps
59. Sebastien Carabin (Belgium)-2Laps
60. Martin Loo (Estonia)-2Laps
61. Zsolt Szlobodnyik (Hungary)-2Laps
62. Andriy Gumenyuk (Ukraine)-2Laps
63. Evgeny Vitmanovskiy (Russian Federation)-2Laps
64. Tiago Jorge Oliveira Ferreira (Portugal)-2Laps
65. Luka Homovec (Slovenia)-2Laps
66. Sergio Pulido Rodriguez (Spain)-2Laps
67. Mitchell Peterson (United States Of America)-2Laps
68. Luka Mezgec (Slovenia)-2Laps
69. Jo Thorson Nordskar (Norway)-2Laps
70. Vero Lüscher (Germany)-2Laps
71. Joshua Samuel Barley (New-Zealand)-2Laps
72. Marco Minnaard (Netherlands)-2Laps
73. Carlos Rodrigo Sigre (Argentina)-2Laps
74. Marios Athanasiades (Cyprus)-2Laps
75. Carlos Maria Corso (Argentina)-2Laps
76. Lucian Logigan (Romania)-2Laps
77. Ricardo Javier Hazbun Velazquez (Chile)-2Laps
78. Andriy Khripta (Ukraine)-2Laps
79. Lorenzo Martelli (Italy)-2Laps
80. Andy Eyring (Germany)-2Laps
81. Vasilis Adamou (Cyprus)-3Laps
82. Matjaz Budin (Slovenia)-3Laps
83. Abdulkadir Kelleci (Turkey)-3Laps
84. Matyas Kusz (Hungary)-3Laps
85. Colin Cares (United States Of America)-3Laps
86. Idan Shapira (Israel)-3Laps
87. Dani Simcic (Croatia)-3Laps
88. Seiya Hirano (Japan)-3Laps
89. Rodrigo Adrian Darnay (Argentina)-3Laps
DNF. Dariusz Batek (Poland)
DNF. Sam Jurekovic (United States Of America)
DNF. Georgios Pattes-Toumanis (Greece)
DNF. Mattias Wengelin (Sweden)
DNF. Nicola Rohrbach (Switzerland)
DNF. David Lozano Riba (Spain)
DNF. Ian Field (Great Britain)
DNF. Rodolfo Andres Torres (Colombia)
DNF. Mattias Nilsson (Sweden)
DNF. Martin Fanger (Switzerland)
DNF. Davide Di Marco (Italy)
DNF. Markus Bauer (Germany)
DNF. Maximiliano Daniel Franzoi (Argentina)


 

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