The results are in from the U23 Men's XC World Champs with the British rider Thomas Pidcock taking the win by nearly two minutes. This is Pidcock's second rainbow jersey this week after he also won the e-MTB World Championships earlier this week. Check out the results below.
Results:
1st. Thomas Pidcock: 1:08:15 2nd. Christopher Blevins: +1:52 3rd. Joel Roth: +3:05 4th. Simone Avondetto: +3:21 5th. Sean Fincham: +3:46
@SangamonTaylor, he really is. It's awesome to see what someone with a strong BMX racing background can do on an XC bike. His high posting no-handers are sweet too.
Junior events are definitely needed, but the U23 top level in XC and DH and CX can often pull wins in the elites as soon as they go up. When they are in Europe I go watch these events when I can, and the Junior and U23 lap times can be amazingly quick. Same with DH in certain sections. They just aren't ready to sustain a whole run at high speed or a 1.5 hour + race.
Just looking at the ages of a lot of the riders winning or getting on the podium at big events there doesn't seem to be much need for a U23 class in DH racing.
The difference in speed between a full grown adult and a early 20ish in XC is massive. There's also the 80% rule, so almost no upcoming Junior would be able to even finish race.
I get why he wants to go to Ineos- but such a loss for MTB.
When they are in Europe I go watch these events when I can, and the Junior and U23 lap times can be amazingly quick. Same with DH in certain sections. They just aren't ready to sustain a whole run at high speed or a 1.5 hour + race.
There is just no U23 classification in DH. For me U23 is strange anyway. Old enough to just call it adults / elite race