August 28/22 22:16 pm - Nino Schurter Wins 10th Elite XCO World Title, Fincham Cracks Top-30
Posted by Editoress on 08/28/22
The incomparable Swiss rider Nino Schurter won his tenth Elite XCO world title on Sunday, in the final race of the 2022 Mountain Bike World Championships in Les Gets, France. His closest rival, Julien Absalon of France, has four. Schurter's first world title was as a Junior, in Les Gets, in 2004, 18 years earlier.
Schurter's win was no cruise; he faced an extremely strong field, including Olympic champion Tom Pidcock (Great Britain), Olympic bronze medalist David Valero (Spain), recent World Cup winner Luca Braidot (Italy) and 2020 champion Jordan Sarrou, racing before a home crowd.
A lead group of five quickly formed on the first lap, with Schurter, Valero, Braidot, Sarrou and Alan Hatherly (South Africa). Pidcock, who has been racing primarily on the road this season and thus has a low UCI mountain bike ranking, had to work his way up from starting on the fifth row, and didn't join the leaders until the start of the third lap.
Sarrou and Hatherly were the first to be dropped, on Lap 4, as Pidcock pushed the pace, even gaining a slight gap on Schurter when the Swiss rider had a small crash. The group was back together for Lap 5, but Pidcock crashed and was showing signs of fatigue; coming off the back of the group and having to rejoin multiple times.
By the penultimate sixth lap, Pidcock, after a bobble in the roots, had been dropped for good and would eventually barely manage to hang on for fourth. Schurter and Valero pulled away from Braidot, who remained close at 10-15 seconds, but was unable to close the gap.
At the front, there was no separation between Schurter and Valero. Valero tried to take the lead multiple times, but Schurter always managed to pick up the pace to maintain his spot at the front. It was only in the final kilometre that Schurter was able to get away in one of the technical sections and make it stick, winning by nine seconds over the Spaniard, with Braidot coming in at 29 seconds.
"It's unbelievable," admitted Schurter. "I couldn't believe it when I crossed the finish line that I did it again. I really tried it from the start, to make it a hard race so that Pidcock couldn't get too easy to the front. It was a tough race and at the end it was Valero and I; I took my chance to try and force him to make mistakes, and luckily he did make one, in one of the last technical bits and I was able to get away and I just went full gas. This place is magic for me, I won my first title here and now I have won again as one of the oldest riders ever!"
Canada's top finisher was Sean Fincham in 30th, a pretty remarkable result considering he started 76th on the grid, in Row 10. Gunnar Holmgren was the only other Canadian to crack the top-50, in 49th place. Fincham made it to the mid-40s by the end of the first lap, and then the low 30s by the next lap. He admits that his rapid move up forced him to back off mid-race.
"It's good, but honestly I was hoping for a little bit more," admitted Fincham. "I think I just didn't play my cards right, and moved up a little too quickly at the start. I started paying for it, and the heat got to me. I had to take a few easy laps in the middle of the race, but managed to push hard at the end. It was definitely a mental battle to push on that last lap, I had some cramps, but I was just trying to get it over with. Seven full laps was a lot more physical then i thought; there were lots of rocks you had to hop over and awkward janky sections that were hard work, for sure. It's been a long battle, dealing with overtraining and setbacks, but I finally feel that I'm at a place that I can race to my potential."
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