Vallnord World Cup XC - Photo Recap and Results
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 How many mechanics does it take to bleed Jaroslav Kulhavy's brakes the morning of a World Cup? |
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| Luna Pro Team Manager, Waldek Stepniowski getting prepped for the day. |
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| Sabine Spitz warming up in the pits before going to war, massacring the competition, and claiming the win. |
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| Plate number 8, Yolanda Neff, taking the initial hole shot down the opening straight during the Women's XC race. Katerina Nash quickly surged to front on the first climb and her hard pace shattered the field: only the strongest riders could stay with Nash. |
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| Neff, one of the riders to make the break with Nash, briefly seized the lead before getting reeled in by the field. Loads of road racing tactics were on display from the lead group, making attacks like this hard to pull off. |
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| Neff, for example, was swallowed up and spit off the back; Gunn-Rita taking a pull on the front. |
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| On lap four of the five lap race, though, Katerina Nash of Luna laid down a vicious attack on the main climb. |
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| Tanja Zakalj battling her way back into contention. The series leader was caught in no man's land behind the lead group. She kept grinding, but one rider, working solo, vs a crew of 6 on a wide open, wind swept track? No chance. All she could do was limit the damage to retain her overall (which she did). |
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| Spitz, ecstatic to take her first World Cup win in over a decade. |
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| Serious horsepower in them thar legs... |
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| That is a whole lot of speed on display: the opening lap of the men's XC race. |
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| Down, but not out: Julien Absalon threw a chain on the opening lap and was forced to chase hard to even catch back on. |
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| Marco Fontana rocking the baggy shorts. |
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| Lines and lines and lines... The XC course loops around all over the place. |
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| A fair number of the usual suspects seemed to be having a bad day. Nino Schurter, for example, was in 11th at the end of lap one--not the usual spot for last year's World Cup Overall winner and the reigning World Champ. |
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| Nor is it normal to see Julien Absalon battling his way through the entire field. |
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| Ondrej Cink seized the lead in lap one and it looked as if he'd run away with this one; on lap two his pursuers were well in the rear view mirror (in this shot they are just cresting the hill beside the TV camera position). |
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| Schurter was on a mission to get back to the front. The chase group on Cink was led on the climb by the Swiss Power rider. Again, road tactics played in as Schurter's teammate Florian Vogel worked hard to lead the bunch back up to Cink. |
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| Maxime Marotte pinning it on the back stretch of singletrack. The track here was wide open to the sun and as a result, dusty as hell. |
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| An unknown rider making his way up through the pretty field of dandelions. |
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| Mathias Fluckiger weaving down through the flowers. |
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| Lukas Flueckiger eating dust on the back stretch. |
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| Smart man: with less than 100 meters to the finish, and just about to raise arms in victory, Schurter, who had battled his way all the way back up to Cink and then edged out the Czech on the final climb, took one quick glance to confirm Cink's demise before reveling in the victory. |
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| Geoff Kabush was the top Canadian, but there were still 46 finishers ahead of him. |
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| Ukranian rider Mykhaylo Batsutsa battled his way to a 54th place finish. |
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| Heat, altitude, and heavy winds.... damn near every rider looked like this after they crossed the line. |
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Couple of mechanicals for Absalon (chain drops, at least 3 that I can count) otherwise he would have been in the top2 or top3