European XC Championships: Nino is back
After the last international races the result of the European Championships in the womens category was no surprise. Pauline Ferrand-Prévôt confirmed her outstanding form and became European Champion. On the pretty technical course in Monte Tamaro the stilly reigning World Champion was dominating the field again. She was leading the field most of the time and could in the end secure a 40 second lead to Anne Terpstra from the Netherlands. Third became Yana Belomoina from the Ukraine, what is impressive because Yana Belomoina is a typical climber and the course in Monte Tamaro was a technical course with short punchy climbs. Yana does prefer more long and steep climbs. Evie Richards ended up in fourth place and can now be seen a a frequent member of the top five already in her first year as elite rider.
Sadly Jolanda Neff couldn’t finish the race. We do not yet know what happened to her. That rounds up a pretty unsatisfying short season for Jolanda. For the only two world cups this year in Nove Mesto she got ill and couldn’t perform on her level. She was better at the World Championships in Leogang and finished on sixth place.
In the mens race we got to see a familiar face with a familiar style on the very top. Nino Schurter is back with the form we (and he himself) expect from him and won hist first European Championships. Yeah, really, although he is World Champion for eight times he never won a European Championship. But he often didn’t even start in the past years. So after only a ninth place last week at the World Championships he dominated again on home soil. From the start line he was in the lead group together with Titouan Carod, Filippo Colombo and Mathias Flückiger. In The beginning the first chasers were Luca Braidot, the newly crowned World Champion Jordan Sarrou and Maxime Marotte. After the half of the race Titouan Carod and Nino Schurter could distance the others. Titouan Carod even managed to drop Nino Schurter for several meters multiple times on the last two laps. But Nino Schurter always was able to get back to him. In one of the last turns he overtook Tituan Carod why at the same time had to stop and put one leg on the ground. We do not know why and if it was because Nino Schurter overtook him. After that Nino had a comfortable lead of ten seconds on the last few meters and had no problems to bring that to the finish line. He was noticeably relieved after the race. Titouan Carod didn’t seem that happy about his silver medal. The third place landed on the neck of Mathias Flückiger. After a strong start Filippo Colombo hat a flat and ended up only in 27th place. World Champion Jordan Sarrou could no really play a role for the medals and became fifth with a gap of 1:07.
That’s a wrap of the Cross Country season 2020. Let’s hope next season will be longer.