Victor Koretzky (Specialized Factory Racing) and Laura Stigger (Specialized) claimed the final short track (XCC) victories of the year at the Mont-Sainte-Anne UCI MTB World Cup while Puck Pieterse (Alpecin-Deceuninck) and Luca Schwarzbauer (Canyon CLLCTV) took out the overall World Cup XCC titles.
Stigger, who last week claimed her first elite cross-country Olympic (XCO) victory at Snowshoe, kept the momentum rolling in Canada when the Austrian delivered a powerful attack in the final lap of eight. She dropped Leona Lecomte (Canyon CLLCTV), who finished second, and Rebecca Henderson (Primaflor Mondraker Genuins Racing Team) who took third.
Pieterse came over the line in fifth place which was enough for the 21 year old rider to claim the short track series win ahead of Alessandra Keller (Thömus Maxon), who finished 14th on the day.
“I gave everything I had,” said Pieterse who was hoping for a better result to finish off her year of short track racing, however was pleased to secure the overall. “I’ll let it sink in tonight and tomorrow a bit and then try and focus one more time to go full gas.”
The Dutch rider, who is also on track to take out the XCO series title said “I hope I have better legs than today on Sunday because I really want to go out with a bang.”
In the elite men’s short track race it was a group of eight that came through together at the start of the final lap of ten, and Koretzky was quick to lay down an attack. The French rider stretched out a small gap and then held it through to the finish to keep his end of season short track victory streak on a roll, making it three in a row. Jordan Sarrou (Team BMC) was second and US rider Christopher Blevins (Specialized Factory Racing) came third.
“The beginning of this season was not so good for me and now I am in good shape and I’m just enjoying riding in the front. It’s amazing to fight, like today, with strong guys,” said an emotional Koretzky in the televised post-race interview. “It was really tactical and I love racing like this because until the last lap you never know who will win.”
Schwarzbauer crossed the line in seventh place, playing a careful hand to make sure he secured the series title. The German rider finished on 1550 points, 110 points ahead of Sarrou.
Results powered by FirstCycling
Men’s short track results
Women’s short track results
