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Olympic mountain bike champion Tom Pidcock proved Saturday he’s nonetheless the person to beat at subsequent summer season’s Paris Video games.
Pauline Ferrand-Prevot of France confirmed she’s the girl to beat, too, even when her final Olympics was one to neglect.
Pidcock pulled away from a star-studded area on a technical course by Scotland’s Glentress Forest, then held off the fast-finishing Samuel Gaze of New Zealand to win the mountain bike title on the penultimate day of biking’s world championships. His rainbow jersey got here hours after Ferrand-Prevot dominated the ladies’s area to win the title for the fifth time.
“It is a huge reduction,” Pidcock mentioned. “As quickly as I attacked, my gears had been leaping all over. I did not know if I ought to cease and tighten it up. My race may have been over at any level. I did not wish to go correct and put it underneath any stress.
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“That was a anxious final two laps,” he added.
Gaze completed 19 seconds again in failing so as to add the Olympic-distance cross-country title to the short-track world title he received earlier on this planet championships. Nino Schurter, the 10-time cross-country world champion from Switzerland, was proper behind Gaze heading into the ultimate lap however pale and completed 34 seconds again in third.
Dutch star Mathieu van der Poel, who bought up from a late crash to safe the highway race title final weekend, was attempting to hitch Ferrand-Prevot as the one riders to carry the cyclocross, highway race and mountain bike titles in the identical 12 months. He crashed on a seemingly benign nook early within the mountain bike race, held his proper knee in ache and finally didn’t end.
The harm didn’t seem severe, and van der Poel conceded to Dutch media later that “it was my very own fault.”
Pidcock had been largely specializing in the highway earlier than the pandemic-delayed Tokyo Video games in 2021, then he hopped on a mountain bike and confirmed his power, endurance and bike-handling means in successful Britain’s first medal of any colour.
Pidcock continues to compete on the highway for the Ineos Grenadiers group, successful Strade Bianche earlier this 12 months to go along with a second-place end in Liege-Bastogne-Liege and a third-place end within the Amstel Gold Race. However he additionally received a pair of cyclocross races this previous season, and his mountain bike World Cup win at Nové Město despatched him to Scotland with confidence.
“To be trustworthy I have not bought a lot phrases for the time being. It has been such an extended week, ready for the beginning of this race,” mentioned Pidcock, who took bronze within the short-track race. “I haven’t got a lot left now. I have to go lie down. However you already know, I pulled my skinsuit on this morning and it says within the collar, ‘Encourage the nation,’ and I hope I did that at this time.”
Ferrand-Prevot has no scarcity of confidence on the world championships.
She received the title for the primary time in 2015, when she additionally received the cyclocross and highway race championships, and had added three extra titles previously 4 years earlier than Saturday. However her off-road dominance took a giant hit on the Tokyo Video games, the place the Swiss group swept the medal stand and he or she completed greater than 4 1/2 minutes again in tenth place.
“In the mean time I am feeling actually comfortable,” Ferrand-Prevot mentioned. “It was an excellent exhausting race. I did not have a superb begin however I wished to maintain my very own tempo throughout the entire race. I did full fuel on the uphill and tried to get well on the downhills, and it labored completely and I am actually proud, as a result of I saved my plan.”
Ferrand-Prevot was ready on the end line to hug French teammate Loana Lecomte, who completed 1:14 again to take the silver medal. Puck Pieterse of the Netherlands was one other 13 seconds again to take the bronze medal.
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