XCC Short Track Results from the Val di Sole World Championships 2021

 I'm so stoked. What a talent. Making Durango proud!

 USA! USA! USA!

 so stoked for him and team USA!

 So stoked!!!

 I might not go that far. Lots of top riders either opting out or not necessarily giving their all in the short track knowing that the XCO is the real prize, but it's pretty awesome nonetheless.

 @adamszymkowicz:
Fair point, but I feel that the young crop US riders and teams like Bear National are doing a good job of bringing a little cool factor back to XC. All this new breed of kids can rip and they’ll do well on modern XCO tracks as evidenced by the decent finish of some of the US Juniors.

 @shorttravelmag, How were you able to watch? It says it is geo-blacked out for me on red bull tv!!

 @Ross0318: VPN

 @Ross0318: VPN is you friend.

 @Ross0318: VPN bro

 @cls6677: Surfshark!

 What VPN? I tried Nord and it still says geo restricted and wont let me watch no matter what I choose. Tried Opera browser too.

 @Sayree: you have to choose the right region. If you "travel to the UK" you can watch the English language version on Redbull.

 @Ososmash: Right, VPN first, then login as UK, and you'll get the full Rob/Brent commentary just like the world cups. It was fantastic to have those 2 and the whole red bull team doing the WChamps. They really were great races. short track can often be boring to me, fast, furious, but kind of predictable until the last lap. But this time, you never quite knew who was in the zone. I mean Blevins didn't even make his move until the last corner! One corner, and a sprint. It could have been a bust if he went any earlier.

 @Ososmash: Ive tried a dozen different countries in the VPN and still nothing. Redbull tv has even said "we see you are in ________ would like like to switch to the regional site. I tried the 4 english speaking ones they have listed as available too. Nothing seems to work.

 @Ososmash: Got it. I did what your other post said pretty much. Thanks.

 @Sayree: Did you try clearing the Cache of your browser?

 So this might be a stupid question, but obviously in the WC circuit racers do both XCC and XCO. Over the past seasons the XCO World Champion has worn their stripes during the short track event. Is that still going to be the case? or are they going to have to wear trade kit in the XCC like a TT in the World Tour? Similarly, when does Blevins get to wear his stripes? Just in the XCC?

 @adamszymkowicz: I was wondering that also. I am assuming (probably wrongly) that they would get different looking Jersey's. But, I guess getting to wear your stripes in any XCC event / once a race weekend really isn't a big deal.

 @adamszymkowicz: XCC champ will wear rainbows in XCC, XCO champ will wear rainbows in XCO. Same as on the road...Road world champ does not wear the rainbows in any time trial stages, nor the World TT champ wear rainbows on a non-TT stage.

Technically none of the national champs should wear their jerseys in XCC unless they are national XCC champ, but most ignore this. Anton Cooper never wears his NZ national MTB champs shirt in XCC races; always rocks up in his Trek trade shirt

 @Sayree: I used Nord (and "visited" Switzerland). It worked great for me.

 @handynzl: I've noticed Avancini wearing stripes on his sleeve during XCC world cup races (and even XCO races maybe?). I guess they allow some overlap in MTB since he's only won a championship in XCM.

 Is Thanksgiving coming? Thanks for spoiling the surprise! Jeez!

 I invested in Surfshark's VPN. Guess that's what Red Bull comments mean to me. Let's hope that Discovery and GCN doesn't want to delve further in the sport because it would be a shame to lose 'legal' access to the platform who at least knows what is doing.

 @FujiPT: trying to use Surfshark too, which country did you connect with and which link to watch did you use? Can't seem to get any to work!

 Try ingognito mode within your browser next time - worked right away for me as soon as I switched into it.

 @EnsBen: I had problems with Germany (Berlin) and Hong Kong, despite being on the list of countries not georestricted (I'm not sure Hong Kong was but usually are on UCI events)

Ended up using Czech Republic with no problems.

 So true

 Same for Sky TV in NZ mate. DH and XCO will be impossible if that's the case!

 in the UK you can stream / watch it on Redbull. You don't need to watch it through BBC.

 I'm betting Kate withdrew because she competed in the team event yesterday. Probably just hedging her bets in case something went south yesterday and never planned on starting today.

 There is a specific link for the English language version. I connected to the UK, scrolled around until I found (UK click here) and then it all worked.

 I used a vpn set to France and used the link for France on the Pinkbike page from a couple days ago. I also loaded the link in incognito mode. Worked first try that way. I tried a few other ways that didn't work.

 Saving their legs for the race that everyone really wants would be my guess.

 Emily Batty was showed as a spectator on the redbull feed just before the begenning of the women race

 You can't trust that list at all.

 @caiocrz: rats, she is going to win tomorrow, i had her on my list but because of the injured status traded.

 She took what looked like a pretty nasty OTB but seeing that she was only 11 seconds back I'd dare to say she's Okay.

 Sam has been showing some signs of returning to his 2018 form as of late. At the least he's doing much better than he has done since his head injury back in 2019.

 @Augustus-G: He looked so composed the first few laps, almost a joy ride. But he clearly ran out of steam somewhere. Still a good run, I mean 10 seconds behind is like 14th place or something.

I still don't get the 2 heats runoff. Why not simply take the whoever wants to race, and take the top 40 rankings, and be done? Everyone who is in the world champs has a UCI ranking number already.

One thing I liked is the ride whatever bike you want thing. Blevins was one of the only to ride a hard tail. That last minute of the race required pure power. Even locked out, maybe that gave him a touch of an edge? Probably not, these are pros and all that. But still kind of interesting.

 @shorttravelmag: Because the World Champs is for the WORLD not just those that get to compete at the World Cup and have UCI points. Having two heats gave other riders a chance of making the final. If not, both Sam Gaze and Ben Oliver would not have been able to race for NZ, not to mention anyone from a smaller nation.

Heck Avancini wouldn't have been able to race without having the opportunity to qualify via the heats. Shall we take away his silver now?

World Champs does not equal World Cup.

 @handynzl: that makes no sense. They only had to get rid of a few people. If you were selected to race at the world champs, wouldn’t you have to have UCI points? I didn’t say anything about racing world cups at all. Just points. Every single rider has to have a uci ranking I would guess. A small country, or any country, couldn’t just pick some random person from their local series and send them to the World Champs, could they? I have eno idea how it works, but even the lowest riders in the races must still be ranked.

If they had 68 riders to whittle down to 40, then I get it. But it was like 47 down to 40.

Makes no matter to me either way. Just seems weird. My way makes it known who is eligible for the short track before the race. I’d say first 40 who show up day of get to go. Since many top ranked people skip it, you’d just keep going down the list until you fill the 40.

 Nino is old and has to save his matches for the main event, XCO. An old racer can’t recover as fast as the young.