(electronic music)
- Loads of great racing action this week,
so let's start off with the final round
of the 2018 Mountain Bike World Cup,
that took place on new tracks
for both cross-country and downhill in La Bresse, France.
So the XCC is the first race of the weekend
and riders have to race both the XCC
and XCO on the same bike.
And whilst the XCO course was tough and techy,
so using a full suspension bike would really help,
the XCC track was much more suited to hardtail,
with smooth, grassy sections and short, punchy climbs.
So a tough decision for the racers.
So almost a hometown race for Pauline Ferrand-Prevot
and with valuable points available towards the overall,
the battle between Jolanda Neff
and Annika Langvad was hard fought.
Both riders on full suspension bikes,
with actually dropper seat posts as well.
On lap five of the XCC, Langvad put in a massive effort
to drop Neff and Benko and rode away with the race,
to tighten up the points race with Neff for Sunday.
All but one XCC race went to Langvad in 2018.
Benko took second, to deny Neff just a few more points.
In the men's race, Avancini took an early lead,
with Schurter and Lars Forster in tow.
Maxime Marotte pushed through early to take the lead,
but it was Mathieu van der Poel,
who put down an amazing turn of power to take the win.
Lars Forster is on-form and managed to take second place.
Avancini third, Schurter slid out on the last corner
and actually dropped to sixth place.
With rain making the XCO course even more technical,
it become a case of running some of the worst sections.
The course played its part in the race
for the overall title in the women's race,
as many of the top riders suffered punctures.
Jolanda Neff, the overall leader, suffered two punctures,
actually one of them taking almost 50 seconds to fix,
that made it a super hard race.
Whilst Langvad also suffered a puncture,
but was actually able to push hard and overtake Emily Batty
and provisionally move into the title lead,
with Neff in fourth, behind Pauline Ferrand-Prévot.
But the drama continued, Langvad had problems
and dropped back to fourth place,
it looked like chain problems actually.
But Neff pushed super hard to move back up
to second place and back into the title lead.
The last two laps came down to the wire,
with four riders back in one group.
Langvad suddenly dropped back, possibly a chain problem,
but got back again, it was Neff, Langvad, Batty lining up.
A super strong ride and fast descent on the last lap
from Neff was enough to break them
and take the 2018 title in classy style,
followed by Batty, Langvad and Pauline Ferrand-Prévot.
Probably the most exciting race of the year.
Nino Schurter was crowned champion at the last round,
but second place was still up for grabs,
between Avancini and Marotte and Mathieu van der Poel.
So Schurter rode a really strong ride,
to win his 30th World Cup race,
in tough conditions, it's gotta be said.
Mathieu van der Poel actually had a crash
on the last lap, which dropped him to fourth place.
Maxime Marotte and Gerhard Kerschbaumer
had a a great ride for second place.
So the overall went to Schurter,
Mathieu van der Poel, then Maxime Marotte in third place.
Huge rain showers made the downhill race
super hard work on the technical,
but actually quite flat track in parts.
Rachel Atherton showed her talents,
when she needed to the most and took the win,
along with her sixth overall World Cup title.
Tahnee Seagrave had to settle for second place today
and in the overall.
Last year's World Cup Champion,
Myriam Nicole, took third place.
Now there were crashes for a lot
of the big riders in the men's race.
Gwin, on that 29er, Amaury Pierron,
who had already taken the title last week.
Gee Atherton blasted back to the podium in second place,
only to be denied by his old team-mate.
A huge win for Martin Maes, the winner
of the last round of the Enduro World Series in Whistler,
for showing how much talent the guy has,
across all forms of mountain biking.
A dual slalom win at Sea Otter,
multiple EWS wins, a junior World Downhill Champion
and now a Downhill World Cup winner, pure class.
Brook McDonald took a great ride for third place.
Remi Thirion returned to the podium in fourth place,
great to see after his massive crash and injuries last year.
Bernard Kerr in fifth.
In the overall, it was Amaury Pierron,
Danny Hart jumped up to second place,
Troy Brosnan in third, Vergier dropped back to fourth
and Laurie Greenland in fifth.
Now the rider of the week this week,
has to be Jolanda Neff, coming back from two punctures,
one that took about 50 seconds to fix.
She must have thought the overall was lost,
not once, but twice.
To win the race and the overall, what a ride.
Over in Sao Paulo, Brazil,
the largest annual Latin American cycle show took place,
along with the third stage of the 2018 CIMTB at the weekend.
Cross-country racing got under way,
with both cross-country olympic
and short-track events taking place.
The XCO track was a challenging urban course,
measuring 5.88 kilometers per lap.
Whereas the short-track course measured 1.83.
The XCC Men was won by Luis Henrique Cocuzzi,
second place, Rubens Donizete Valeriano
and in third place was Guilherme Gotardelo Muller.
XCC women, the win went to Luciana Roland,
second place was Karen Olimpio
and in third place it was Danilas Ferreira Da Silva.
The XCO Men was a complete copy of the XCC race,
Luis Henrique Cocuzzi took the win,
Rubens Donizete Valeriano second
and Guilherme Gotardelo Muller, third place.
XCO Women, first place went to Luciana Roland,
second Leticia Jaqueline Soares,
third place went to Karen Olimpio.
Now to the Dutch National Championships,
the Three Nations Cup,
taking place in Zoetermeer, Netherlands.
One of the top Dutch mountain bike races
in the race calendar, Zoetermeer is a legendary location
in cross-country, with nationals
and European championships hosted there since 2001.
On Friday, the Dutch national championships took place,
in a cross-country elimination race.
Then on Saturday and Sunday,
the Three Nations cup was battled for.
The 4.2 kilometer course featured five technical sections
around a primarily sand terrain,
with short, steep climbs and varied descents.
So a pretty physically demanding course.
The women's race was Hannah Van Boven,
Manon Bakker and Inge Roggeman.
In men's it was Marc Bouwmeester,
winning from Daan Soete and Sebastien Cariban.
That's it for this week's race show.
If you wanna see a couple more videos from Whistler,
click over there for GMBN Rides with Seth,
Blake goes riding with Seth, that's amazing.
And over there for Blake's race diary,
where he does a bit of everything at Whistler.
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