Source: federciclismo.it
The Frenchwoman also conquers the world title in crosscountry after cyclocross and road, confirming herself as one of the most extraordinary talents in world cycling - Lechner escapes the Top Ten due to a mechanical accident.
Vallnord (AND) (5/9) - If yesterday's Rissveds podium seemed a surprise, what happened today in the elite women's XCO race at the Vallnord World Championship is even more sensational. Sabrina Neff, dominator of the World Cup season and true off-road talent, to the point of competing with the Elite Women despite being still a U23, has punctured the only race in recent months, leaving the scene after not even one lap and closing at 9th place (but she had slipped even further back). The French Pauline Ferrand Prevot graduated world champion, able to immediately find the right pace on a difficult course, both from the altitude and technical point of view and made even more treacherous by yesterday's rain.
But the surprise is relative if we frame the palmarés of the athlete we are talking about. In fact, this today is the eighth world championship seal of his very young career (six individual, two as a team). The girl prodigy of transalpine cycling turned 23 on 10 February. She is world champion in cyclocross (Tabor 2015) and road (Ponferrada 2014) elite women, she makes the trio of individual titles with today's triumph in the Olympic XCO. She is her first individual world title in the specialty, but as a junior she had already won two world championships in 2009 in Canberra and in 2010 in Baupré (year in which she also won the road title in Offida) .
Always in the cross country, from under 23 conquered the silver in Pietermaritzburg 2013 and the bronze in Champèry 2011. To close the account, we must add the two team golds in the team relay (2014 and 2015).
Immediately after the arrival he was asked if now by chance he wasn't also thinking about the track, he replied: "Not at the track, but to reconfirm me on the road and especially at the Olympics ..." It is to be believed that a crystalline talent like his it will be able to make a lot of talk about itself in the next few years.
On a day marked by the sun, the race immediately after the start seemed to have to follow the usual script, with Neff on the run alone and the others running for containment. Instead, after a half lap in which the Swiss tried to make the selection, suddenly the collapse. Jolanda is picked up by a small group formed by Ferrand Prevot, the outgoing world champion Catharine Pendrel, the Ukrainian Yana Belomoina (then third on arrival) and the Polish Maja Wloszczowska. Our Eva Lechner, one of the first to start, is slowly sucked around the 9_10th position.
The quartet did not leave Neff time to understand what was happening: he left her to her fate, which was that of an inexorable descent to 13th position, in an evident competitive crisis (it will eventually go back to 9th square).
During the second lap, Ferrand Prevot forces the pace and manages to conquer about twenty seconds enough to set up the solo race. Behind her the positions change in an alternation of situations that keep the level of interest high. In the end, the Russian Kalentyeva, author of a spectacular comeback from 10th position, in which she had slipped in the first half of the race. The Ukrainian Belomoina climbed on the third step of the podium, able in the last lap to bend the resistance of an indomitable Pendrel (later also beaten by Dhale) who for a long part of the same race had cradled the illusion of being able to conquer even silver.
Dhale's race is commendable, she too capable of recovering positions after an uncertain start and that in some moments even the impression of being able to get on a world podium again (last year she was third).
As for the Italians, Eva Lechner had started well, managing to extricate herself from the traffic at the start. She then struggled to find the rhythm on a path where, instead, she definitely counted. She held around the tenth position until the last lap, when she broke the rear wheel dropout on the long descent and she had to glue the bike to the finish line, thus losing the ninth position to finish 23rd.
LAP AFTER LAP
LAP 1: 1. Yana Belomoina (Ucr) 18'08 "; 2. Catharine Pendrel (Can) 18'09 ”; 3. Pauline Ferrand Prevot (Fra) 18'09 ”; 4. Maja Wloszczowska (Pol) 18'10 ”; 5. Gunn Rita Dahle Flesjaa (Nor) 18'39 ”; 6. Irina Kalentyeva (Rus) 18'41 ”; 7. Emily Batty (Can) 18'48 "; 8. Eva Lechner (ita) 18'53 "
2nd LAP: 1. Pauline Ferrand Prevot (Fra) 36'44 ”; 2. Catharine Pendrel (Can) 37'06 ", 3. Maja Wloszczowska (Pol) 37'21"; 4. Yana Belomoina (Ucr) 37'32 ”; 5. Gunn Rita Dahle Flesjaa (Nor) 37'33 ”; 6. Sabine Spitz (Ger) 38'19 "; 7. Emily Batty (Can) 38'20 "; 8. Irina Kalentyeva (Rus) 38'20 ”; 9. Eva Lechner (ita) 38'36 ", 10. Lea davison (Usa) 38'45".
ROUND 3: 1. Pauline Ferrand Prevot (Fra) 55'44 ”; 2. Catharine Pendrel (Can) 56'27 ", 3. Maja Wloszczowska (Pol) 56'37"; 4. Gunn Rita Dahle Flesjaa (Nor) 56'43 "; 5. Yana Belomoina (Ucr) 56'49 "; 6. Irina Kalentyeva (Rus) 57'10 ”; 7. Sabine Spitz (Ger) 57'35 ”; 8. Emily Batty (Can) 57'58 "; 9. "; 9. Eva Lechner (ita) 58'34 ″ at 2'50 ”; 10. Lea davison (USA) 58'37 "
LAP 4: 1. Pauline Ferrand Prevot (Between) 1h14'30 "; 2. Catharine Pendrel (Can) 1h16'00 ”; 3. Irina Kalentyeva (Rus) st; 4. Gunn Rita Dahle Flesjaa (Nor) st; 5. Yana Belomoina (Ucr) 1h16'15 "; 6. Maja Wloszczowska (Pol) 1h16'34 "; 7. Sabine Spitz (Ger) 1h17'33 "; 8. Emily Batty (Can) 1h18'01 "; 9. Lea Davison (Usa) 1h18'32 "; 10. Eva Lechner (ita) 1h18'55 "to 4'25".
ROUND 5: 1. Pauline Ferrand Prevot (Between) 1h33'53 "; 2. Irina Kalentyeva (Rus) at 57 ″; 3. Catharine Pendrel (Can) 1h35'24 ”; 4. Gunn Rita Dahle Flesjaa (Nor) 1h35'32 "; 5. Yana Belomoina (Ucr)) 1h35'33 "; 6. Maja Wloszczowska (Pol) 1h36'21 "; 7. Sabine Spitz (Ger) 1h37'16 "; 8. Emily Batty (Can) 1h37'33 "; 9. Lea Davison (Usa) 1h38'11 "; 10. Jolanda Neff 1h38'40 "; 11. Eva Lechner (ita) 1h39'17.
ORDER OF ARRIVAL
1. Pauline Ferrand Prevot (Fra) 1h52'44 ”;
2. Irina Kalentyeva (Rus) at 58 ″,
3. Yana Belomoina (Ucr)) at 1'36 ";
4. Gunn Rita Dahle Flesjaa (Nor) at 2'15 ";
5. Catharine Pendrel (Can)st;
6. Maja Wloszczowska (Pol) at 2'52 ”;
7. Emily Batty (Can) at 3'42 ";
8. Sabine Spitz (Ger) at 4'02 ";
9. Jolanda Neff (svi) at 4'57 ";
10. Lea Davison (USA) at 5'14 ";
23. Eva Lechner at 12'15 ";
33. Serena Calvetti at 16'21 ";
40. Anna Oberparleiter at 1 turn;
