Mitterwallner, Avancini Win Gold At UCI Mountain Bike World Championships
Mitterwallner, Avancini Win Gold At UCI Mountain Bike World Championships
Austria's Mona Mitterwallner and Brazil's Henrique Avancini won mud-splattered mountain bike cross-country marathon world titles in Scotland on Sunday.
Austria's Mona Mitterwallner and Brazil's Henrique Avancini won mud-splattered mountain bike cross-country marathon world titles in Scotland on Sunday.
Mass starts saw riders set off for a 96.5-kilometer route that featured 3,200 meters of elevation, crossing though five Scottish forests.
The 34-year-old Brazilian Avancini raised his clenched fists crossing the line in a time of 4 hours, 14 minutes, 42 seconds to reclaim a title he won five years earlier.
A women's field of 62 ended up with Mitterwallner crossing the line in a time of 5:07:50.
Filippo Ganna Wins Track World Championship
On the track, Italy's Filippo Ganna won the men's individual pursuit to add to his world record set at last year's championships in Australia.
Over the four-kilometer race, Ganna defeated Daniel Bigham of Great Britain courtesy of a storming final kilometer to win by just 0.054 seconds.
Jonathan Milan of Italy edged Ivo Oliveira of Portugal for the bronze medal.
Ironically, 31-year-old aerodynamics expert Bigham may have aided Ganna's victory.
Working as a performance engineer for the Ineos Grenadiers, last year he was instrumental in 'Project Ganna,' helping the Italian to break the UCI hour record that Bigham himself had set less than two months earlier.
"It's always been my problem since Day 1," joked Bigham. "I tell people what they're doing wrong and what they should do better. At the start, they didn't listen, and I guess now they do a bit. It makes life a little bit hard, but it's all part of the fun, and I think it presses it on, especially for the next 12 months running into the Olympics."
Belgium's Lotte Kopecky claimed gold in the women's elimination race ahead of Valentine Fortin of France and American rider Jennifer Valente.
Ellesse Andrews of New Zealand won the women's keirin with Colombia's Martha Bayona Pineda taking silver and Germany's Lea Sophie Friedrich pocketing the bronze.
Portugal's Iuri Leitao came home first in the omnium ahead of France's Benjamin Thomas and Shunsuke Imamura of Japan.