Lena Gerault’s wild save on Brazil World Cup course

There are a few serious features on course in Petrópolis

Terry McKall April 4, 2022

Cross country courses are getting more technical, with bigger jumps and drops, every year. Riders and bikes are also improving, making for thrilling racing, but it means when things go wrong, they have the potential to really go wrong.

2020 French national champion Léna Gérault, who rides for KTM Vittoria, nearly discovered this over the weekend in Brazil. The French rider was practicing at for the Cimtb “mini-World Cup” event, held on the same course as this weekend’s upcoming World Cup season opener, when she had a close call on one of the course’s more imposing features.

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Gérault gets nose-heavy on a drop, riding out the approximately 15-foot wooden landing on her front wheel. The KTM Vittoria’s impressive skills let her hold on and ride this one out, somehow. But it shows that just because the pros make these features look easy doesn’t mean they’re actually easy to ride.

It should make for thrilling racing when the World Cup starts on Friday, April 8 though!