The 31st Leadville Trail 100 MTB didn\u2019t disappoint. Keegan Swenson extended his winning streak to five, while Kate Courtney made an unforgettable first impression by smashing the women\u2019s course record by over 10 minutes.<\/p>\n
Halifax\u2019s Andrew L\u2019Esperance finished in 6th as the top Canuck in the elite men\u2019s race. Elite women\u2019s favourite Haley Smith<\/a>, the sole Canadian, didn\u2019t finish.<\/p>\n Courtney, racing Leadville for the first time, crossed the finish line in 6:48:55 \u2014 besting Annika Langvad\u2019s decade-old record by 10:28. She also left defending women\u2019s champ Melisa Rollins more than 10 minutes behind. Rollins, who finished second, became only the third woman ever to break seven hours on this brutal course.<\/p>\n Drop bars at Leadville have the keyboard warriors frothing<\/a><\/p>\n<\/p>\n Swenson was unstoppable in the men\u2019s race, breaking away with John Gaston and Simon Pellaud early before powering ahead solo on the iconic Columbine climb. He finished in 5:45:35, beating Gaston by 15:16. Though shy of his own 2023 record by two minutes, Swenson\u2019s time ranks as the second-fastest ever at Leadville.<\/p>\n The win puts Swenson seven points clear atop the Life Time Grand Prix standings, with Pellaud third and Torbj\u00f8rn Andre R\u00f8ed moving up to fourth after edging Payson McElveen.<\/p>\n Courtney said after the race, \u201cI\u2019ve had an amazing time here. I kept thinking Melisa was going to catch me, which kept me honest. When I hit the pavement near the end, I realized I might get the record. I\u2019m proud of that.\u201d<\/p>\n Swenson reflected on his win: \u201cIt was a good day. The terrain was super loose, so I just tried to stay upright and give it everything. I\u2019ll take it race by race, aiming to win every time.\u201d<\/p>\n Top 5 women:<\/p>\n 1. Kate Courtney \u2013 6:48:55 Top 5 men:<\/p>\n 1. Keegan Swenson \u2013 5:45:35 Note: Lauren Stephens was disqualified post-race for receiving aid outside designated zones, moving riders up one spot.<\/p>\n Full results available here <\/a>and here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The 31st Leadville Trail 100 MTB didn\u2019t disappoint. Keegan Swenson extended his winning streak to five, while Kate…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":59920,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[569],"tags":[48761,64,63,784,48762,48763,48764,48765,85],"class_list":["post-59919","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-andrew-esperance","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-cycling","tag-haley-smith","tag-kate-courtney","tag-keegan-swenson","tag-leadville","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59919","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=59919"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59919\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/59920"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=59919"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=59919"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=59919"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
2. Melisa Rollins \u2013 6:59:16
3. Cecily Decker \u2013 7:09:48
4. Sof\u00eda G\u00f3mez Villafa\u00f1e \u2013 7:16:52
5. Sarah Lange \u2013 7:17:16<\/p>\n
2. John Gaston \u2013 6:00:51
3. Simon Pellaud \u2013 6:08:21
4. Torbj\u00f8rn Andre R\u00f8ed \u2013 6:15:03
5. Payson McElveen \u2013 6:15:03<\/p>\n