5 Things We Learned at the Nove Mesto World Cup XC 2019

Before this season, you had to go back to 2016 for a non-European World Cup XC winner in the women’s series and June 2012 for the last time there wasn’t a European in the top three - that was Catharine Pendrel, Georgia Gould and Marie-Helene Premont in Mont Sainte Anne.

Everything has been turned on its head in 2019 and a resurgent field of women are ripping up the form book. Leading the charge is Kate Courtney, who is proving that her World Champs win in Lenzerheide was no fluke, but alongside her, Canada’s Haley Smith and Australia's Rebecca McConnell also had fantastic races. Chloe Woodruff is also showing great form with a short track win on Friday helping her to sit fourth place in the overall after two rounds. Haley Batten also took the U23 women's win.

Mathieu Van Der Poel finally claimed the World Cup XC victory that has been on the cards since he first crossed over in 2016. Van Der Poel and Schurter led as a group of two but Van Der Poel put the hammer down on the final half of the last lap to leave Schurter with no answers.

But unfortunately, we won’t see Van Der Poel on a mountain bike for a while. After a full cyclocross season, some road races and now mountain bike races, he’s going to rest up and recover. He’s made no secret his big goal is an Olympic gold medal and he will now aim to peak for Tokyo in 2020 rather than defend his World Cup overall lead. He’ll only be racing select events this year and next year before aiming for Olympic glory. He’s as clinical off the track as he is on it and you’d be brave to bet against him medalling next summer. We should make the most of watching him race now before he leaves the sport for good.

We had three new bikes to ogle over in Nove Mesto. First was the Pivot that we’ve already had all the details for and a first ride on, then there was the Mondraker F-Podium, and the other was a more mysterious bike from Trek that was obscured by a wrap over the shock.

Rebecca McConnell rode the new Mondraker F-Podium to seccond place in the XCO and Chloe Woodruff found instant success on the new Pivot with a win in the Short Track, but the Trek fared less well as Jolanda Neff finished off the podium for the first time since 2017 with Emily Batty and Anton Cooper also finishing lower than they would have wanted. Trek have more than a month to get some more miles in on the bike and will no doubt have the whole team firing again in Andorra.

Annika Langvad is normally the first name we look to when it comes to the early season in the women’s XC. She has won the opening round of the World Cup for the past 3 years but this year has not found that same form.

After disappointing results in both Short Track and Olympic distance in Albstadt, she competed in the Short Track in Nove Mesto but decided not to race on Sunday and will rest up until the next round in July in Andorra. Her fatigue is no doubt due to the monster road race season she just completed with the Boels Dolmans team that saw her podium at the Fleche Wallonne and Strade Bianche. Expect to see her rested and fighting fit in July.

Our crack investigative journalists, Andy Vathis and Matthew DeLorme, were sent around the pits earlier this week to find the finest cup of espresso going. The contentious results of their thorough exposé have already been published, but what does this mean for the racing?

Well, if correlation does equal causation, then our work may just have uncovered the secret to fast XC racing. Scott, Ghost and Trek have strong positions at the top of the overall and their espressos were top notch too.

Further testing needs to be conducted to understand how Haley Smith overcame her Nescafe handicap.