Highlights: Pidcock’s cross country arrival in Nove Mesto
Exhilarating racing at the XCO World Cup round in Czech Republic
Photo by:
Bartek Wolinksi / Red Bull Content Pool
If you missed Sunday’s World Cup racing, you missed out. I mean, we said that last week too, but its true! With crossover superstars going head-to-head with world champions and young talent putting pressure on established pros, 2021 World Cup season is off to an exhilarating start.
All this, with Tokyo looming on the horizon. For many athletes, Nove Mesto XCO was the last chance to qualify for the 2021 Olympics. That meant, on top of the usual World Cup pressure, five years of training and hard work hanging in the balance on Sunday.
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For Tom Pidcock, Olympic qualification was front of mind but out of his control. Due to the UCI’s obscure qualification process, landing a spot depended not on the young British rider’s performance, but on that of Romania’s Vlad Dascalu.
Instead, Pidcock focused on his rival, Mathieu van der Poel, and putting him in the rear view.
On the women’s side, Loana Lecomte was similarly focused on her own race. The French woman set a record in Nove Mesto, for the single largest World Cup winning margin in the venue’s decade-long history with hosting XCO events.
