Nino Schurter Wins One for the Ages in Thrilling End to the Brazilian XCO Weekend
The nine-time World Champ finally gets the 33rd World Cup win that has eluded him since 2019
After three bangers to start the 2022 UCI XCO World Cup—the two Short Track races on Friday and Sunday’s Elite Women’s XCO race—all pressure was on the Elite Men to close Brazil’s first World Cup since 2005 in the proper style. With a raucous crowd of fans coming out to support the event and hometown hero Henrique Avancini, there was certainly the proper atmosphere to make it happen.
While there were no doubt many storylines for the Elite Men, as we established in our weekend preview, the biggest one had to be Nino Schurter’s chase of a record-tying 33rd World Cup victory. Schurter has been stuck one short of Julian Absalon’s mark since his win at Vallnord in July of 2019. With Mathieu van der Poel and Tom Pidcock, two of the thorns in Schurter’s side in recent years, racing on the road, Sunday was a perfect opportunity for Schurter to finally get that seemingly elusive 33rd World Cup win.
The track in Petropolis was more or less carved out of a jungle, giving it a different look that your standard European mountain bike race. The heat and humidity did not cause DNSs among the top competitors, but it still created challenging conditions for riders coming off winter training.
Here’s more optional soundtrack for the race:
Two Vets and a Young to the Front
There is no one recipe for a banger of a race, and the two Elite XCO races on Sunday provided a good example of that truism. The Elite Women’s race was more like a cyclocross race, with Loana Lecomte going out hot from the start and forcing a selection via riders reacting to her aggression.
The Elite Men’s race had more of a gravel vibe, with an early mass of riders being slowly whittled down to the final selection. Yes, I just made this totally specious analogy, and I am going to roll with it. It is unclear how inclusive the vibes were and if there were any whiskey and pickle juice aid stations.
After some overnight rain, the Petropolis course appeared to be pretty well dried out by the time the men raced in the mid afternoon, and they responded with an appropriately fast start. One of last year’s regular characters, the Czech Dangler Andrej Cink, got things started by leading the charge up the first climb. A big group of riders that included American Christopher Blevins generally stuck to his wheel with nary a bike length between riders.
One lap into the race, the lead group was like 11 riders or something—Cink, Blevins, Nino Schurter, Alan Hatherly, Maxime Marotte, Vlad Dascalu, Mathias Fluckiger, Henrique Avancini, Thomas Litscher, Filippo Columbo, and Titouan Carod.
In the second lap, Cink again pushed the pace up the first climb. This time, he started to do some damage, as the chasing riders started to spread out. The riders best able to keep Cink’s pace were Schurter, Avancini, and Hatherly. Schurter took over the lead on the second climb and opened up a gap on Cink and the others, again demonstrating the difference between an elite descender and a not-so-elite descender.
The following lap, the first true selection established, with Hatherly, Schurter, Marotte, Avancini, and Dascalu at the front. Cink Czangled 10 seconds off the group after three of seven laps. Mathias Fluckiger, last year’s World Cup winner, showed he was not on the form he showed throughout last year’s World Cup and was sitting well back in 7th, sporting a healthy amount of mud on his shoulder after crashing early in the race.
After the group was whittled from 11 to 8 to 5, the fourth lap finally knocked it down to the 3 who would take it to the line in the last lap.
Cink Czangled his way back to the front five on the first climb as the pace slowed on the hot, muggy afternoon. Then, near the top of the first climb, Marotte went to the front and pushed the pace. Schurter and Dascalu followed, and the three broke off the front. Home-country hero Henrique Avancini dangled 8 seconds back along with Hatherly, at this point still firmly in podium contention.
The three leaders were each chasing their own stories. Schurter, well, there was that 33rd World Cup win. For Dascalu, a massive win in his first race after getting signed by Trek Factory Racing. And for Marotte, his first-ever World Cup XCO win and Santa Cruz’s first World Cup win. There could be, as they say, only one, however.
Three Men Down to the Line
Inside three laps to go, it certainly looked like the conditions and the pace were starting to take a toll on Marotte. The other aspect of the lead trio was the age gap between Schurter and Marotte and Dascalu. Dascalu is a spring chicken at age 24, while Schurter and Marotte were the grizzled veterans at age 35. While Schurter looked strong in both Friday’s Short-Track race and through the first-half of the XCO race, Marotte was suffering.
Dascalu and Schurter put some time into Marotte on the first climb and descent, opening up a small 4-second gap. Marotte, however, fought back in the second half of the lap and rejoined the other two. He would dangle again in Lap 6, but at the bell, the three riders were back together. The stage was set for a banger of a final lap.
Meanwhile, things were quite fluid in the chase. The three leaders put time into Avancini, and the Brazilian started to drop back, joining up with Colombo after Lap 5. In Lap 6, Avancini continued to drop down the leaderboard, while Sebastian Fini Carstensen of Denmark and Pierre De Froidmont of Belgium surged forward to join Colombo in the chase for 4th through 6th heading into the final lap.
After flagging in Laps 5 and 6, Marotte seemingly came back from danglerville at the start of the bell lap, putting in a small dig at the start of the first climb early in the last lap. Schurter was all over the move, jumping right to Marotte’s wheel. From there, Marotte set a relatively mild pace up and down the first climb. It seemed given the conditions and riders’ fitness, there would be no lap-long race-winning attack.
Schurter asserted his control on the situation shortly before the second windy climb through the jungle. The track was narrow on this climb, winding back and forth, meaning Schurter would have the lead spot up to the top and back down the descent. Schurter is known for his elite descending skills, but Marotte and Dascalu kept his wheel back to the final section of the course.
The final section of the course covered the second half of Friday’s Short Track course, meaning riders had already seen how the section would play out. In that race, Schurter was near the front going into the final kicker and right-hand turn, only to be passed by Thomas Litscher and Alan Hatherly.
Despite that experience, Schurter chose to lead from the front up and over two flyovers and toward the final kicker. Already mashing a big gear, he powered up the final kicker, only to see Marotte come around his right side and win the race to the right-hand plunge. With only maybe 100 meters of grass following the descent, it appeared to literally everyone Marotte had won the finish before the finish and thus the race.
Schurter, however, said not so fast, my friend.
Even though Marotte was in the lead, Schurter did not throw in the towel. Once at the bottom, he matched Marotte in swaying back and forth and putting down big watts. Maybe 25 meters before the finish, if not less, Schurter found another gear to pull around and take the win.
It was one for the record books, with Schurter tying Julian Absalon for the all-time record with 33 World Cup wins.
Schurter has been around the scene for a while, he’s seen a few things, he’s won a few races, but he still celebrated his record achievement like it was the first of his career, hoisting his bike above his head and yelling incoherently with the raucous Brazilian crowd. Like, I am pretty sure he was doing a lot of Wooting. You love to see it.
Marotte took 2nd and Dascalu 3rd. Great results for both men, even if they did not get the win.
It was a similar story in the chase, with the three riders hitting the final kicker together. For them, it was Carstensen and Colombo who rose to the top, with the Dane getting to the right-hand turn first and holding on through the final sprint to take 4th.
Avancini had a tough last two laps, dropping all the way back to 13th. Mexican rider Jose Ulloa finished an impressive 11th and Christopher Blevins took 19th. Full results are below.
The next XCO World Cup is May 6-8 in Albstadt, Germany.