2021 XCO World Cup Starts with a Pictante Weekend in Albstadt
Dare we say a statement from a budding Women's star and a banger from the Men at World Cup Albstadt
Last Friday’s Bulletin preview of the first UCI XCO World Cup of the 2021 season at Albstadt, Germany kind of went like Mathieu van der Poel’s day in the XCO race on Sunday.
It started off with a bang, with the humble author pointing out that Van der Poel typically wins with big attacks on the short track course’s steep climb—which he did on Friday. It then slowed and completely blew up when I failed to mention, at all, Victor Koretzky, who outdueled Nino Schurter in the final meters of Sunday’s XCO race to capture his first career World Cup win. Koretzky finished second at Worlds last October and entered the weekend third in the UCI rankings, so yeah, probably deserved a mention and not my finest race preview moment.
Pundit accountability checks aside, mountain bike racing was BACK this past weekend, with the Elite Men delivering a banger that went down to the final corner, and a budding young star putting the Elite Women’s field on notice after a dominant, near wire-to-wire win.
There is a lot to talk about, from Pidders, to MvdP’s mortality, to the future of U.S. cycling, but first, Snoop Dogg.
Short Track Races - Friday
Elite Women
With all the focus on Pauline Ferrand-Prevot, Kate Courtney, Jolanda Neff, and others, it was a rider crossing over from the Mountain Bike Eliminator scene who stole the show for most of the Elite Women’s short track race on Friday. Switzerland’s Linda Indergand is a two-time XCE world champion who moved to cross-country racing with the Liv Factory Team several years ago.
The Women’s short track races have historically come down to the last lap, so when Indergand made a move to pass in front of Ferrand-Prevot at the banked turn at the end of the second of six laps and then went full send at the front, the World Champ kind of shrugged her shoulders and let the upstart Swiss rider get a gap on the rest of the field.
Although the big move from Indergand felt kind of novel, taking a step back, it kind of makes sense. If you watch game film on the short track races—it’s available for free, after all!—a rider would get a sense of how the short track races ultimately come down to the last lap. If you’re a sub-topper who’s likely to get played by PFP or Evie Richards or Kate Courtney in the last lap, why not go full send, get your sponsors some air time, and make the rest of the chase decide who’s going to do the work to bring you back?
Indergand made a good run of it, including shrugging off a stuck dropper post that dropped it like it was hot, and had a 14-second gap(!) heading into the bell lap. However, that bell lap had a strong Pauline Clauzel at GP Leuven vibe. At GP Leuven, Ceylin Alvarado finally decided it was time to kick things up and reel Clauzel in; at Albstadt, it was Ferrand-Prevot.
After letting Courtney do more than her share of the work in the chase for a good chunk of the race, the defending World Champ roared to life and erased Indergand’s lead with alarming speed. After Ferrand-Prevot caught Indergand, the Swiss woman responded and again had to do some extracurriculars to get her dropper post back up, but she still kept her second position.
PFP made the pass right before the finishing sprint and then easily won the sprint to take the win. Despite Indergand coming up a bit short in the sprint, it seems tough to argue with a strategy that garnered her quality camera time and a second-place finish on the day.
Elite Men
Maybe it is a Cycling Out of Context situation, but it is hard to read this video as anything other than a not-so-subtle flex from a confident man about to crush some souls.
If you were busy at work waiting for that last lap Van der Poel attack, you missed out because the Flying Dutchman wasted little time in going flying off the front in the second lap. Just as my colleague Bill predicted, Van der Poel revved it up on the false flat before the flyover and went screaming off the front of the pack. While many were left speechless by the early move, Nino Schurter and Victor Koretzky were fully aware of what was happening and they sprinted forward to neutralize the attack. Respect, as they would say, that an eight-time world champion chases down your Lap 2 attack.
Even though Van der Poel’s effort was neutralized, the message was sent. The statement was made. Y’all are racing for second today.
In the bell lap, Schurter and Koretzky made a play to stop Van der Poel’s inevitable onslaught by attacking where the Dutchman had earlier in the race. However, Van der Poel efficiently and fiercely just outsprinted them to the flyover and then … just kept going.
The result was as most expected: a Van der Poel victory. And foreshadowing what was to come on Sunday, Koretzky outsprinted a rejuvenated Schurter to take second.
XCO Cross Country - Sunday
Elite Women
The first race is always interesting because it provides a first look at where athletes are, fitness-wise, and because the competitors do not necessarily have a sense of the dynamics of the season’s racing. Those first races also provide an opportunity for aspiring stars to send a message to their competitors—or make a statement, if you will—that they have the ability to control the racing.
In the two Elite races on Sunday, riders attempted to send messages with early attacks. One made a STATEMENT while the other’s attempt at dropping a bomb on the field fizzled out before it could echo across the Swabian Alps.
The early animator in Sunday’s Elite Women’s XCO race was Dutchwoman Anne Terpstra. Terpstra wasted little time making her move, attacking at the first climb. Last season’s breakout star, France’s Loana Lecomte, obliged Terpstra’s desire to animate the race from the get and calmly used her climbing prowess to lead the chase. American Kate Courtney, looking to make a statement of her BACKness after a disappointing 2020 two-week campaign, immediately recognized the threat and dug deep to keep pace with Lacomte. Meanwhile, another of the race favorites, Pauline Ferrand-Prevot, had a bit more of a laissez-faire approach to the start of the race, slotting in in 9th place.
After catching Terpstra and then thanking her for her early aggression, Lecomte blasted past the Dutch rider on the second big climb of the prologue and immediately gapped off the front. As Terpstra’s fast start faded, Courtney and Friday’s star, Laura Indergand, were left to try to keep her in check.
Lecomte’s lead after the 10-minute prologue was a mind-blowing 18 seconds. Solo off the front, Lecomte would not be touched the rest of the way.
That’s really it for the Elite Women’s race. Loana Lecomte. That’s it. That’s the tweet. That’s the race.
While Lecomte’s win is just one race, her early attack and solo effort had a similar vibe to the early-season Denise Betsema wins where the Dutchwoman went ballistic early on and essentially won her races in the first half-lap. Lucinda Brand and Ceylin Alvarado eventually got hip to the need to neutralize those early attacks, and they proved successful later in the season if they could match Betsema’s early blistering pace.
One thing to watch this weekend at Nove Mesto is how Ferrand-Prevot and Courtney respond if Lecomte revs it early on. Courtney tried her best to keep pace with Lecomte, but as Ferrand-Prevot’s eventual solo second-place finish showed, she is probably the Topper most capable of neutralizing Lecomte on the climbs early in the race. She will have to show a bit more of a sense of urgency at the start of the race if she wants to be in a position to stop a young phenom who now knows she can ride away from the best in the world.
The other story of the day for the Elite Women was American wunderkind Haley Batten. Checking in at 22-years old, Batten kicked off her first season as an Elite mountain bike racer with a day and result to remember. Batten hails from Utah and has been a budding star on the international scene for several years now. She joined fellow U23 graduate Christopher Blevins in signing with the Trinity Racing program that used to be the home of another young phenom, Tom Pidcock.
Batten used the first half of the race to work her way from 15th to 4th to overtaking Courtney for the 3rd spot with 3 laps to go. Inside two to go, Batten dropped Courtney on the climbs and then kept the 2018 world champion at bay in the bell lap to take the bronze in her first Elite World Cup.
“I honestly didn’t know what I was going to be capable of this year,” Batten said after the race. “I’ve had a couple hard races, but to start the season like this was pretty incredible. The short track was a really exciting race, and I felt really strong there, so I just gave it what I had today and raced my race. I’m happy.”
Elite Men
While Mathieu van der Poel has had a lot of success in mountain biking, especially in 2018 and 2019, Albstadt has been a tough nut for him to crack after finishing 3rd in 2018 and 2nd in 2019—yes, yes, for Mathieu van der Poel, not winning a race is “a tough nut to crack.” After Friday’s XCC watt bombs, Van der Poel wasted little time in trying to pull a Lacomte and end Sunday’s XCO race by the end of the prologue.
Van der Poel took advantage of his technical prowess to get an early advantage by taking the lead after the second climb of the prologue and opening up a gap on the descent and subsequent false flat. Brazilian Henrique Avancini answered the bell and attached to Van der Poel’s wheel. The two opened up an 8-second lead on a group that included bit hitters Schurter, Koretzky, Milan Vader, and defending World Champ Jordan Sarrou. That group was more than well aware of what Van der Poel is capable of, and it was clear they were not going to let him casually open up a big gap at the front.
The Albstadt course is known as one of the most challenging on the World Cup circuit thanks to its two massive climbs. The steep ascents of the Swabian Alps quickly took their toll on Van der Poel, and by the second of the two climbs, his early attempt at sending a message was more a meek suggestion than an overwhelming STATEMENT.
With no coast-to-coast victory in store for Van der Poel, what broke out was a banger of a bike race.
To set the stage for the rest of the race, it is probably a good time to talk about one Thomas “Picante” “Pidders” Pidcock.
With success as a young cyclocross racer and an inevitable WorldTour contract in hand, Pidcock decided in 2020 that he wanted to race mountain bikes as well. The result was wins in both the U23 Men’s World Cups, the eMTB World Championships, and the U23 Men’s World Championships. Pidcock entered Sunday’s XCO race with the 76th call-up, but the expectations that he was good enough to compete for the win at the front. No pressure. At a minimum, Pidcock was hoping to move up into the top 16 and earn a spot in the short track race at Nove Mesto this coming weekend.
On a course perfectly suited for his climbing prowess, Pidcock did the thing with typical Pidcockian flare. After the prologue, he had jumped 50 spots to 25th. One lap into the race, he bridged to join the lead group of 15 or so. A lap later, he was in the lead. For the record, in 30 minutes of racing, Pidcock passed 75 dudes and took over the lead of a World Cup race. IDK about you, but I found myself longing for a Tom Pidcock Passing a Million Dudes supercut.
I don’t know if irony technically applies—perhaps more a Morisetteian coincidence—but it was a line choice that ended Pidcock’s shot at the win in the third lap. The Shimano Dual Climb section featured a longer, flatter line and a shorter, steeper choice. Race day was hot and the course mostly dry, but the split line-choice section featured a good amount of moisture.
Pidcock opted for the short, steep section, while the other race leaders—Schurter, Koretzky, Mathias Fluckiger, and Ondrej Cink—all opted for the longer, flatter line. Pidcock slipped out at the end of the final steep climb and gave Schurter, Koretzky, and Fluckiger a gap he would ultimately not be able to make up.
With three laps to go, the stage was set. Schurter, Koretzky, and Flucki (can I call him Flucki? I am going to call him Flucki) at the front with Cink, who was doing his best Jamey Driscoll impression and dangling off the back, making up time on the climbs and losing it on the descents.
In the 5th of 6 laps, Fluckiger led the way up the climbs, showing confidence born out of a win at Albstadt in 2019. He was unable to shake Schurter and Koretzky, and Cink dangled his way back to the front to set the stage for a killer final lap of the first World Cup of the 2021 road to Tokyo.
It is that this point in the race narrative we must kick it back to our homey Snoop Dogg.
Somewhere at the start of the bell lap, Fluckiger’s dropper post got stuck in the down position, and unlike Indergand on Friday, he was unable to free it up and return it to an upright position. The result was he had to take on two massive climbs completely out of the saddle. To Flucki’s credit, he kept the lead for longer than one might expect, but when Schurter attacked in a flatter section, he was unable to keep pace.
Koretzky, however, was, and the stage was set for a duel between a man looking to cement his BACKness and set the all-time World Cup wins record and an up-and-coming rider looking to win his first-ever World Cup. Unfortunately, as the legend goes, there could be only one narrative to come out of the race’s closing minutes.
Schurter led up most of the second climb without Koretzky trying to get a jump on the Swiss living legend. With only a descent and a long false flat section awaiting following the climb, Koretzky interestingly proved content to sit second wheel, perhaps armed with the knowledge he outkicked Schurter on Friday.
Looking to cement his BACKness and leave nothing to the race’s closing meters, Schurter absolutely sent it on the descent. Absolutely sent it.
Schurter opened up a small gap—let’s call it five bike lengths—on the descent and absolutely buried himself up the false flat. Not intimidated, Koretzky matched Schurter’s all-out attack and closed the gap right before the whoops section. There would be no stopping the charging Frenchman as he continued on to the front and took the lead position at the 180 into the short finishing sprint. Just as he did on Friday, Koretzky outkicked Schurter on the tarmac, this time wrapping up the first World Cup win of his career.
You can watch the last few minutes of the Elite Men’s race here.
Heading back a mere 29 seconds and completing the Pidcock Parable, Van der Poel recovered after blowing up earlier in the race and actually caught up with Pidcock at the start of the bell lap in the race for 5th. Pidcock dug deep on the climbs in the bell lap while Van der Poel suffered due to back pain, and Pidcock came away with a podium finish (they go five-deep in mountain bike World Cups), bested Van der Poel’s 8th-place finish at Albstadt in 2017, and perhaps most importantly, outdueled Van der Poel in the last lap of the race.
What does it mean? Well for one, Pidcock appears to be the REAL DEAL. But in terms of Pidders v. Van der Poel, after the race, Van der Poel said he was suffering from back issues throughout the race, so it remains to be seen if Pidcock will be able to take Van der Poel on a regular basis. Also too, the Albstadt course played perfectly to Pidcock’s strengths, whereas the shorter climbs at Nove Mesto fit Van der Poel’s punchy power much better.
Needless to say, with Schurter BACK, a new star in Koretzky taking flight, and Pidders and Van der Poel continuing to amaze, the Elite Men’s mountain bike season is shaping up to be a good one.
Unfortunately, due to THE RULES, the race at the Olympics will likely not include Pidcock adding his particular flavor of British spice to the mix. With only 38 spots on the Tokyo start line, spots are reserved for the top 21 nations as determined by a sum of UCI nation rankings as of May 28, 2019 and nation rankings from May 28, 2019 to March 3, 2020 plus the two 2021 World Cups. (That was my best try at interpreting the criteria—peep this link to try for yourself)
On a more positive note, we cannot leave the Elite Men’s race without giving a shout to another young American star in Christopher Blevins. In true American cycling fashion, Blevins was overshadowed by the success of his female teammate Batten, but Blevins still had an impressive Elite debut, coming on strong in the second half of the race to move up a few spots and finish 13th.
Fans do not have to wait long for the mountain bike action to heat up again, with the Nove Mesto World Cup taking place this weekend in the Czech Republic. You can … wait for it … Czech out the short track race on Friday at redbull.tv and return again for the XCO main events on Sunday.
Results and lap reports are available for the Elite Women and Elite Men.
For more coverage of the XCO World Cup, check back in later this week for the return of Cyclocross RADio and its coverage of the Albstadt World Cup.
That was some truly compelling racing for Men and super interesting with women but ride of the day to Pidcock - wow. And great to see more Americans in the mix too though (as we are used to in CX) the TV coverage almost never follows any action past the top 10. Too bad as Blevins was having quite the battle around that too 15 spot with Marrote and company. And you didn’t jinx him from the preview pod - now that is impressive. So is Haley Batten the next Clara Honsinger - that Trinity Kit even resembles Clara’s 2019 S&M kit just a little.