The XC Form Guide: Who's Going Fast Coming into the 2021 World Cup Season
The XC season kicks off this weekend in Albstadt with XCO and XCC races before heading straight to the Czech Republic and the classic Nove Mesto track for Round 2 a week later. After a shortened 2020 season, riders will be looking to get in some top results and test out their winter training before the Olympics this summer.
While the World Cup season is set to start this weekend, we have already seen a few local races with stacked line-ups of the top riders, so let's look at who has shown some good early form at the biggest races of the offseason.
Copa Catalana Internacional 2021 - Banyoles - February 28
The first big XC race of the year was the first round of the Copa Catalana Internacional. In the Elite Women's racing, Evie Richards backed up her top performances last year with a win of over 20 seconds ahead of Jolanda Neff. Evie is looking to have built upon her success in 2020 and she will be a hard rider to beat in Friday's XCC Short Track race and a contender for a top ten finish in the big race on Sunday.
The Elite Men's race saw a tight top five with all the riders within 13 seconds of each other. Coming out on top at the first big international race was Victor Koretzky, managing to secure a two-second lead over Thomas Litscher. Maxime Marotte secured a fourth-place onboard his new Santa Cruz team for 2021 and Vlad Dascalu is continuing to impress in his second year of Elite racing.
Results:
Elite Men:
1st. Victor Koretzky: 1:23:23
2nd. Thomas Litscher: +2
3rd. David Valero: +7
4th. Maxime Marotte: +10
5th. Vlad Dascalu: +13
Elite Women:
1st. Evie Richards: 1:19:52
2nd. Jolanda Neff: +21
3rd. Elisabeth Brandau: +26
4th. Rocio Del Alba Garcia: +47
5th. Lena Gerault: +1:34
Internazionali D'Italia Series 2021 - Andora Race Cup - March 7
The next big XC race to feature some World Cup talent was the first round of the Internazionali D'Italia Series. Victor Koretzky took another top result as he crossed the line 11 seconds behind the Scott-SRAM rider Lars Forster. Lars could be a rider to watch in Albstadt this weekend as he was looking very strong when we last visited the venue in 2019 before a crash took him out of the race. The top five also featured Milan Vader who will be looking to back up two top-three World Cup finishes last year and Gerhard Kerschbaumer on his new Specialized.
Jolanda Neff secured her first big win of the year here with a big gap of 37 seconds to Mona Mitterwallner, a U23 rider experimenting with riding in the Elite category. Anne Terpstra crossed the line in third after a great ride. She kicked off her successful 2019 season with 5th place in Albstadt so we expect another top result this weekend. Fourth-placed Sina Frei is on the Specialized factory team for 2021 after some very impressive past seasons including a year in Elite while still being eligible for the U23 category.
Results:
Open Men:
1st. Lars Forster: 1:28:40
2nd. Victor Koretzky: +11
3rd. Milan Vader: +14
4th. David Valero Serrano: +15
5th. Gerhard Kerschbaumer: +16
Open Women:
1st. Jolanda Neff: 1:14:42
2nd. Mona Mitterwallner: +37
3rd. Anne Terpstra: +43
4th. Sina Frei: +56
5th. Martina Berta: +1:01
Internazionali D'Italia Series 2021 - Capoliveri Legend Cup - April 5
Credits: Michele Mondini
Heading to the second round of the 2021 Internazionali D'Italia Series we saw even more World Cup talent arrive for a bit of early-season racing. Kate Courtney took her first win of the year as she bested Chiara Teocchi by 25 seconds. Kate started her wildly successful 2019 season with an impressive win at Albstadt and will be hoping to emulate that again in 2021.
Henrique Avancini took an emotional first XC World Cup win last year in Nove Mesto and the second round of the Internazionali D'Italia race series saw him prove he still has the speed after the offseason with a super close sprint finish against Nino Schurter and Maxime Marotte. Maxime's new Santa Cruz teammate Luca Braidot also secured a top-five finish, 20 seconds back and once again Vlad Dascalu sneaks into the fastest finishers.
Results:
Open Men:
1st. Henrique Avancini: 1:34:30
2nd. Nino Schurter: +2
3rd. Maxime Marotte: +2
4th. Luca Braidot: +20
5th. Vlad Dascalu: +33
Open Women:
1st. Kate Courtney: 1:36:10
2nd. Chiara Teocchi: +25
3rd. Caroline Bohe: +47
4th. Eva Lechner: +3:56
5th. Sofie Heby Pedersen: +4:07
Internazionali D'Italia Series 2021 - Marlene Südtirol Sunshine Race - April 10
Credits: Alice Russolo
The third Internazionali D'Italia race of 2021 resulted in another two new winners as Mathias Flückiger and Loana Lecomte took the top spots of the day. While still eligible for the U23 category, Loana Lecomte will be taking on the Elite riders after she took her first Elite win last year in Nove Mesto. Loana's nearly two-minute win against the likes of Pauline Ferrand Prevot, Sina Frei and Jolanda Neff is very impressive and shows she is a major threat for the top of the podium this weekend.
Mathias Flückiger took his first early-season win here with a small four-second lead over Nino Schurter, who is yet to win in 2021 but has featured in the 2nd place spot multiple times. Maxime Marotte was another rider in the top five, showing he is getting on well with the new team and looking strong for the World Cup season.
Results:
Open Men (6 Laps):
1st. Mathias Flückiger: 1:23:38
2nd. Nino Schurter: +4
3rd. Maxime Marotte: +11
4th. Ondrej Cink: +11
5th. Filippo Colombo: +28
Open Women (5 Laps):
1st. Loana Lecomte: 1:22:02
2nd. Pauline Ferrand Prevot: +1:44
3rd. Mona Mitterwallner: +2:05
4th. Sina Frei: +2:45
5th. Jolanda Neff: +3:15
Ötztaler Mountain Bike Festival 2021 - April 18
The Ötztaler Mountain Bike Festival was another race to feature a full lineup of some of the best racers and it saw another new woman winner as Anne Terpstra just beat out Anne Tauber for the top spot. Laura Stigger was also looking fast here as she comes off great results in 2020 that saw her take two top-five spots in Nove Mesto last year.
Mathias Flückiger took his second big win of the season so far here as he proves he is looking strong with a five-second gap to Nino Schurter in second place. Schurter's teammate Lars Forster got another top finish here falling just behind Ondřej Cink and Sebastian Fini Carstensen.
Results:
Elite Men:
1st. Mathias Flückiger: 1:29:19
2nd. Nino Schurter: 1:29:24
3rd. Ondřej Cink: 1:29:31
4th. Sebastian Fini Carstensen: 1:29:52
5th. Lars Forster: 1:30:01
Elite Women:
1st. Anne Terpstra: 1:31:26
2nd. Anne Tauber: 1:32:03
3rd. Laura Stigger: 1:32:29
4th. Mona Mitterwallner: 1:33:57
5th. Lena Gerault: 1:34:19
Swiss Bike Cup 2021 - Leukerbad - May 2
Just one week before the race in Albstadt, the first round of the Swiss Bike Cup in Leukerbad was the final chance for riders to get between the tape to test their strength before the World Cup kicks off. Thomas Pidcock completed his first mountain bike race of the year after joining the Ineos Grenadiers and a significant win will give him plenty of confidence for Albstadt despite him having to start quite far back on race day.
The Elite Women's race saw a great victory for Mona Mitterwallner who proved she can take on some of the best Elite riders with a nearly two-minute gap to Kate Courtney. It's looking like Mona will not be starting in the Elite race this weekend, but she will definitely be a rider to watch this season if she does decide to jump up to Elite. Current World Champion Pauline Ferrand Prevot was looking strong last weekend with a third-place finish with her new team as she joined the Absolute-Absalon team for 2021.
Results:
Elite Men:
1st. Thomas Pidcock: 1:26:58.7
2nd. Titouan Carod: 1:30:04.4
3rd. Sean Fincham: 1:30:39.9
4th. Carter Woods: 1:30:50.1
5th. Filippo Colombo: 1:31:09.8
Elite Women:
1st. Mona Mitterwallner: 1:15:32.3
2nd. Kate Courtney: 1:17:13.4
3rd. Pauline Ferrand Prevot: 1:18:24.9
4th. Nina Benz: 1:20:11.3
5th. Jolanda Neff: 1:20:42.2
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You wouldn't expect someone who hasn't raced on a MTB since Lenzerheide 2019 to have any chance of a good result. However, as we're talking about MvdP - anything is possible......
• www.youtube.com/watch?v=khG3cCFzKAQ&t=1303s
• www.youtube.com/watch?v=khG3cCFzKAQ&t=2421s
That interview was in December 2020, and in February 2021 he said: "Ik werd in Hoogerheide al Nederlands kampioen op de weg na een MTB-stage.", which roughly translates to: "I became a Dutch road champion after training on MTB."
Given how good VDP is on these one day races, XCO races are just like a CX races, only more technical. He can loose 5 sec on the downhills on a Schurter or any good technical rider, but he will blow them off once it goes uphill. And put a nuke attack in the last lap, as usual.
Inexperienced bike racers often associate length with difficulty. As you begin to acquire experience you will discover that the difficulty of bike racing entirely depends on level of competition. Road racing is odd in that at any given race only a few started race planning to contend for a good result. There may be 150 starts but only really 30 people are racing for a result, and of those 30 only 10 of them may have that race as their primary goal for the season. Where as when you are at world cup XCO, everybody has targeted the race as their peak performance. Come to an XCO with B form and you can chewed up and spit out, as what happened to MVPD to Les Get in 2019.
MVDP having one bad race near the tail end of an absolutely totally f*cking insane race calendar doesn't really prove much.
But if you really know cycling you know that road racing is full of mountain bikers who switched and immediately were among the best racers in the world (If I have to list them for you then you really need to do some research before engaging in this discussion).
And don't give me "they don't train for mountain biking". Piddcock and MVDP don't train specifically for anything. Every single Pro-team said for years you cannot race CX and Spring classics. You need to do specific training for the classics and CX isn't it. Yet Wout, Piddcock and MVDP pretty well dominated the classics this year.
I always go back to a quote from MVPD after he got absolutely crushed racing WC MTB is 2016, "Mountain biking is vasting underestimated displine." When you talk to the guys who have raced both they all say that WC mountain bike races are just as deep and just as hard as World Tour races. But hey what do those guys know. They should really listen to internet experts.