After the Short Track press conference he said “to win I have to improve the management of the race”. Evie Richards' reaction was not long in coming: the former cyclocross world champion climbed one position compared to Thursday's sprint race, winning the first gold medal for a British athlete in the history of the Mountain Bike World Championships.
Source: press release
On the challenging Trentino track, the British responded in progression to the sprint start of Pauline Ferrand-Prevot, who immediately tried to put the race on the track most suited to her.
After having climbed up the positions in the second round, on the third lap the reunion between Richards and the outgoing champion arrived, reached and soon distanced.
Ferrand-Prèvot's difficulties continued in the fourth lap, when she was overtaken by the Dutch Anne Terpstra, and then by a squad comprising the Swiss Sina Frei and Jolanda Neff and the Polish Maja Wloszczowska in the last race of her career.
While the Dutchman was consolidating his second place, after a mistake by Wloszczowska the fight for the third was reduced to an all-Swiss duel between Frei and Neff, which saw the Short Track champion prevail. Fourth place for Neff, fifth Wloszczowska, sixth Pauline Ferrand-Prèvot.
However, the party is all for Richards, who did not hide all his emotion after the finish line: “I can't believe it. I wasn't sure if I could win such an important title, but today my time has come. In the last few weeks I have been taking care of myself, trying to feel good as well as train hard. When I am happy, my legs turn stronger. Today I think I have proved it. "
Disappointing the blue: never in the heat of the race, Martina Berta and Greta Seiwald classified respectively in twentieth and twenty-first position. Twenty-fourth the outgoing vice world champion Eva Lechner.
