The performance offered by is impressive Simone Avondetto, who put on a great show in the elite race with a comeback that took him within 7 laps from 65th to 6th place. An important injection of confidence in view of the next tests.
Teammates Martín Vidaurre and Victor Koretzky (Specialized Factory Racing) took advantage of the chaos to immediately take the lead of the race together with 7 other riders, with the Frenchman Koretzky immediately setting a strong pace for the race.
Swiss Filippo Colombo (Scott-SRAM MTB Racing Team) took the lead with Koretzky and Vidaurre close behind, and Frenchman Joshua Dubau (Decathlon Ford Racing Team) steadily made his way to join them.
The quartet had almost 20 seconds on the others on lap three, and they worked well together until lap four, with a chase group of three trying to get back in, including Sam Gaze (Alpecin-Deceuninck), winner of the Short Track yesterday.
However, the leading group only grew as the race reached the end, with seven more chasers briefly coming into contact, but the original four still maintained their presence at the front of the race with a narrow gap on Gaze, Blevins and Sarrou ahead of the sixth lap.
Specialized had a third option though, and as soon as they had space, Blevins attacked and quickly opened a gap, with Colombo in pursuit. The chase wasn't enough though and, in exactly one hour and thirty minutes, Blevins achieved an incredible victory, his second on the UCI World Cup circuit, with Koretzky taking second place ahead of Colombo (3 °). The Specialized riders closed an extraordinary race with Vidaurre 5th.
However it was a bad day for Nino Schurter (Scott-SRAM MTB Racing Team). The Swiss rider, who won the overall title last year and leads the all-time list for most XCO World Cup wins, crashed early in the race and could only finish in 35th place, 2:47 off Blevins' pace.
“Convincing evidence – admits Avondetto -. I started well and lap after lap I climbed several positions, until I got back to the leading group where I managed to climb up to sixth place. And if there had been an extra lap, who knows... Now I'm curious to test myself in the next race, I'd like to find some important confirmation."
MEN'S ELITE RANKING
| 1. |  | BLEVINS Christopher (SPECIALIZED FACTORY RACING) | 1:30:00 |
| 2. |  | KORETZKY Victor (SPECIALIZED FACTORY RACING) | 1:30:02 +2 |
| 3. |  | COLUMBUS Philip (SCOTT-SRAM MTB RACING TEAM) | 1:30:03 +3 |
| 4. | | SARROU Jordan (TEAM BMC) | 1:30:05 +5 |
| 5. |  | VIDAURRE KOSSMANN Martin (SPECIALIZED FACTORY RACING) | 1:30:05 +5 |
| 6. |  | AVONDETTO Simone (WILIER-VITTORIA FACTORY TEAM XCO) | 1:30:20 +20 |
| 7. |  | GAZE Samuel (ALPECIN-DECEUNINCK) | 1:30:20 +20 |
| 8. |  | HATHERLY Alan (CANNONDALE FACTORY RACING) | 1:30:21 +21 |
| 9. | | GRIOT Thomas (CANYON CLLCTV XCO) | 1:30:23 +23 |
| 10. |  | DASCALU Vlad (TREK FACTORY RACING – PIRELLI) | 1:30:29 +29 |
