Elite Women's Les Gets XCO World Cup: An Assessment of What. Has. Changed.
Women XCO racers squared off for the final time before the Tokyo Olympics in Les Gets France on Sunday. Did the race change our opinions about the Tokyo favorites?
The driving narrative of cycling here in the U.S. this season has been what, if anything, is changed by a particular event. Some may say, This. Changes. Everything. Others, This. Changes. Nothing.
While European cycling has not got involved in the petty squabbles of U.S. criterium racing, with Sunday’s Les Gets XCO World Cup offering the last chance to see the Olympic Games race favorites on the same course before the showdown in Tokyo at the end of the month, it would only be fitting to view the races through the lens of What. Has. Changed.
For the Women, the story of the season—and that is even an understatement—has been the complete and utter dominance of young French star Loana Lecomte. Lecomte has won each of the first three XCO races and frankly has not come remotely close to being challenged. Her margins of victory in the first three races have been 0:53 at Albstadt, 1:39 at Nove Mesto, and 1:47 at Leogang in Austria. Lecomte entered Sunday’s race in front of the home country fans as the odds-on Olympic favorite, and the mountain bike world was no doubt looking for any sign, any sign at all, that she might be challenged in Tokyo.
While the race favorite position is taken, the situation among medal contenders is much less clear. Coming into Les Gets, five different women had occupied the six medal-finisher positions. American Haley Batten did it twice, and the others were Pauline Ferrand-Prevot, Rebecca McConnell, Jenny Rissveds, and Laura Stigger. As we saw at Leogang, the most fluid battle to watch was the one for second, so there is a sense the podium positions are even more up for grabs than the numbers suggest.
So what, if anything, changed at Les Gets? Les Gets to it and perhaps assess What. Has. Changed. based on the race and results.
Elite Women
Folks, I don’t know if you’ve heard, but Les Gets … is BACK.
The bike park venue is located in southeast France near Geneva, Switzerland was scheduled to hold a World Cup in 2020, but well, we all know how that turned out. It hosted the fourth World Cup of the 2021 calendar and then will host the World Championships next year in 2022. ‘
The course featured two climbs, including the typical large climb at the start of the race lap. There were a few very technical sections, including a boulder garden and a few rooty, rugged drops, and then what proved to be an interesting set of grassy off-cambers that looked like they were taken straight from Gavere or perhaps Mt. Krumpit at Jingle Cross.
Those off-cambers proved to be interesting because similar to a Belgian cyclocross race, the course conditions changed drastically as the afternoon wore on. At the beginning of the Women’s race, the course was dry-ish with some wet spots, and then as the race entered its second half, the rain started to fall. The rain continued into the Men’s race and the conditions deteriorated and the technical features got more technical and the off-cambers more … slippery.
he Women’s race started with a new face at the front of the first climb in that of Spain’s Rocio Garcia. At the top of the climb, Garcia ceded the lead spot to Pauline Ferrand-Prevot and then Jenny Rissveds. Rissveds, the 2016 Olympic champion, entered the race with the momentum of a second-place finish at Leogang, and she asserted herself early with strong bike handling on the race’s first descent. Loana Lecomte, meanwhile, was content to sit in about fifth wheel.
Despite a fourth-row start after suffering a mechanical in Friday’s short-track race, Evie Richards got off to a blazing start and moved all the way up into the top five by the time riders reached the first of two big descents. In an occurrence that would foreshadow what was to come on the challenging afternoon, Richards crashed in a woody technical section, but she quickly recovered and continued riding near the front.
While Lecomte’s technical skills have been superb this year, it has been her climbing that has allowed her to absolutely blow fields apart. Everyone at the venue, in the race, and watching at home knew it was just a matter of when Lecomte would put in her big move on one of the climbs. It did not take much more than 6 minutes of race time for Lecomte to get to the front and push the pace through the first Tech/Feed Zone up the shorter of the lap’s two climbs. This time it was Rissveds tasked with trying to neutralize Lecomte’s move.
And you know what, unlike the previous three races, the Swedish rider was able to keep Lecomte at bay on the steep, slick climb. Ferrand-Prevot also made a surge forward, and at least for a hot second, it looked like Lecomte would not get away so easy this time.
However, as we saw at Nove Mesto when Kate Courtney lost her wheel at the end of the prologue, one small mistake is all a rider such as Lecomte needs. She appeared to get that mistake when Rissveds lost her line and dabbed at the top of that second climb. Lecomte took advantage, and her lead was up to 12 seconds on Rissveds, Ferrand-Prevot, and Becca McConnell at the end of 1 of 6 laps. We have seen this story before, and it appeared Lecomte was on her way to another dominant win.
The theme of this post is about changes, at the start of the second lap, defying everything we have seen thus far this season, perhaps Something. Changed … Question mark.
The trio of PFP, Rissveds, and McConnell caught Lecomte on the first “Neverending” climb. It would have been one thing if it had been on a descent, but on a climb? It did not change everything, but something, maybe?
What followed was probably the best 2:30 of Women’s XCO racing of the season. At the top of the first climb, Ferrand-Prevot sprinted to try to pass Lecomte heading into the mountain-top rock garden. Lecomte, however, responded and denied her countrywoman the lead. Ferrand-Prevot again went hard to make the pass and things even got a little argy-bargy between the World Champ and the upstart youngster. Ferrand-Prevot soon finally took the lead before Lecomte again re-took the lead position.
Then, at the bottom of a slick, muddy descent, Ferrand-Prevot slipped out and crashed. After a little more time than one round in the ring with Lecomte, PFP—and the hopes of stopping Lecomte—were KOed. Lecomte’s lead was up to 21 seconds at the end of that second lap.
The last two-thirds of the race were all Lecomte. It took a little longer for her to essentially end the race this time, but the outcome was still the same.
The vedict: This. Changes. Nothing. about how we feel about who the favorite for the Women’s Olympic XCO race is.
As was the case at Leogang, the battle for second was where the action was. At the end of that second lap, PFP and McConnell were 21 seconds behind Lecomte, and Rissveds and Richards trailed by a total of 38 seconds. Ferrand-Prevot, who looked to be back on some good form after winning Friday’s short-track race, attacked up the second climb of Lap 3, but McConnell was able to close the gap by the end of the lap.
It was in the fourth of six laps that the battle for second started to get really dynamic. With Ferrand-Prevot and McConnell leading up the first climb, Rissveds put in a big effort and eventually passed PFP to move into third behind McConnell. Richards could not match Rissveds pace up the hill, but she was able to move up into fourth past a flagged Ferrand-Prevot thanks to so some help from her cyclocross skills.
With the rain starting to fall around the midway part of the race, the double off-cambery rock garden became infinitely more treacherous, as we would see full-on in the Men’s race. Most women were riding the feature, but in the fourth lap, Richards opted to dismount and weave her way through the boulders on foot.
The move helped her close a good 4 or 5 seconds on Ferrand-Prevot and set her up for a move into fourth. At the end of Lap 4, Richards now trailed Rissveds and McConnell by just 13 seconds.
The Bulletin may be a bit biased toward Richards because we have been watching her obliterate cyclocross races for years now. She won the first-ever U23 Women’s World Championships in 2016, and it is hard to forget Richardsmania at Namur in 2017 when she beat the field going away. Richards made her big splash last year in the short-track races at Nove Mesto, and this year, she has been slowly making her mark on the XCO races. After an off-day at Albstadt, she finished 5th at Nove Mesto and then 6th on a Leogang course some would argue she was not supposed to do well on. On Sunday, with two laps to go, she looked poised to get her best-ever Elite World Cup result and perhaps even earn a spot on the podium proper.
Rissveds again went to her climbing legs on the Neverending Climb at the start of Lap 5 and earned a gap on McConnell. She exploited it on the ensuing descent, while McConnell slowed up a bit and Richards caught and then passed her to move into third on the first descent through the slick, rooty woods.
If you thought Richards’ quest for that third-place finish would come easy, forget it Jake, this is Cyclocross-Like-Conditions-at-a-Mountain-Bike-Race Town. Richards is fun to watch because the only speed she knows is Send-It, but like with fellow send-it certified rider Mathias Flueckiger, sometimes the results are not the best.
Richards opened up a small gap on McConnell on the second descent, but on a drop in the grassy off-camber section, she lost her front wheel and went sprawling onto the slick veneer of mud. It proved to be no worry, however, as Richards hopped back up and kept a 6-second gap on McConnell at the bell. Rissveds had a good 25 seconds on Richards, while Lecomte held a comfy, if not a bit small compared to EVERY OTHER RACE, 41-second advantage on Rissveds.
During the battle royale for second and third, Richards showed she was elite on the technical descents, but McConnell has been waging her quest for ELITE status (see the Media Pit pod for more) thanks in large part to her crack climbing. With the Neverending Climb awaiting, there was definitely still a chance for her to catch Richards. Richards, however, would have none of it, and she extended her lead on McConnell to 17 seconds on that first climb. Her third-place finish was secure.
Rissveds finished strong to take second for the second-straight World Cup. Rissveds took 9th at the season-opener in Albstadt, which was certainly a result worth noting, but then she DNFed at Nove Mesto before bouncing back at Leogang with a silver.
Rissveds’ story is one that truly defines being BACK. After winning the Olympic gold in Rio in 2016, Rissveds left the sport for nearly two years due to a combination of personal, professional, and mental health concerns. She returned to racing in 2019 and made an appropriate splash by winning the Lenzerheide World Cup that year. Still just 27, Rissveds is again showing the talent she displayed at a younger age and with the Olympics three weeks away, she could not be on better form as she approaches the sport’s biggest event that occurs, on average, every four years.
So did the battle for second provide some resolution on the Women’s Olympic medal battle?
This. Changes. Something?
A mountain bike season is one of ebbs and flows, and after Rissveds’ two-straight World Cup silvers, it is hard to argue against her as a favorite to capture silver or even gold if Lecomte trips up. As for the other favorites, Richards’ third on Sunday now means 6 different women have finished in the 8 medalist positions, so in that regard, the battle for silver and bronze is as murky as ever. Richards is on the way up, Ferrand-Prevot is still Ferrand-Prevot, McConnell has been riding well and flirting with ELITE status, and the story 1A of the first two World Cups, Haley Batten, has strong results to hang her hat on as well.
The Olympics, at least the BATTLE FOR SILVER, will be interesting, as wishy-washy sports journalists like to write.