The two riders have won the U23 cross-country short-track event after high pace races, with uncertain outcome until the finish line
World Cup main events start tomorrow with XCC Elite races and downhill qualifying run
Pal Arinsal MTB World Cup has lived its first race day today with U23 cross-country short-track (XCC) races and downhill qualification runs for junior categories. These two events brought us a foretaste of the spectacle awaited these days at La Massana resort. Indeed, we’ve seen unpredictible battles until the finish line, especially on the XCC. On the women’s event, photo-finish was needed to find out which of the Swiss Ronja Blöchlinger or the New Zealander Samara Maxwell is declared winner, after seven very tight laps on this 1.1 kilometer course. In the end, Blöchlinger won the sprint against Maxwell and therefore took the victory (18’36”), while her compatriot Noëlle Buri completed the women’s podium by crossing the finish line 20 seconds behind the first two. With this victory, Blöchlinger maintains the pace of her XCC season, a discipline in which she has won all five World Series events organized so far, thus consolidating her domination in the provisional general classification with 625 points, far ahead of the 435 points from Denmark’s Heby Sofie Pedersen, fourth in today’s race.
The U23 men’s victory was also decided after a last straight sprint, where Frenchman Adrien Boichis (20’37”) has beaten American Riley Amos. Previously in the race, the latter would have led a large part of the nine-lap event, especially in the last corners. However, as the leading group still remained very compact, Boichis was able to shift gears on the last lap to claim victory with a short and sufficient two-second lead over Amos. Brazilian Alex Junior Malacarne completes the podium after crossing the line 9 seconds after the winner and more importantly, one second before the Swiss Luke Wiedmann, fourth.
Pal Arinsal represents the third win of the short-track season for Boichis. He thus increases his first position in the provisional classification of this discipline, scoring 555 points so far. Second in points is Carter Woods, Canada, fifth today. He currently has 405 points.
On the junior downhill side, American Ryan Pinkerton arrived first of the 25 best classified, all guaranteed to take part in tomorrow’s final. Pinkerton completed the course with a 2’50”541 mark. As for junior women, the fastest has been the Colombian Valentina Roa, with a time of 3’32”436. She and the first 9 of her pursuers will also compete tomorrow for the final victory.
Pal Arinsal MTB World Cup main events will begin tomorrow with downhill qualifying run as well as Elite men and Elite women Cross-Country Short-Track (XCC) finals, not to mention the junior downhill finals, featuring the Top 25 men’s juniors and the Top 10 women’s juniors we talked about above. To enjoy as good as possible these races from the edge of the track, the organization again insisted on using public transport and recalled that all information related to the mobility of people can be found on the site https://palarinsalworldcup.com/.