Laura Stigger put together a near-perfect performance at round two of the UCI Mountain Bike World Series. She rode away from the elite women\u2019s XCO field and eventually won by 47 seconds.<\/p>\n
Evie Richards was having a strong race until she crashed while in second place. That left the final two spots on the podium open and created a sprint finish between Jenny Rissveds and Sina Frei. Rissveds raced strategicaly and sprinted at the last few seconds to pass Frei in the final moments of the race.<\/p>\n
Canada\u2019s Jenn Jackson had another great result, finsihing 11th on the day.<\/p>\n
Stigger finally puts it all together<\/p>\n
Stigger credited both hard work and confidence in her equipment.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe always were there and it was a dream,\u201d she said. \u201cGoosebumps.\u201d<\/p>\n
She also pointed toward improvements with her bike setup this season.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was always a bit missing a little bit and yeah, this year with the new Epic\u2026\u201d she said before trailing off with a smile.<\/p>\n
The win also marked the 30th elite women\u2019s XCO World Cup victory for Specialized.<\/p>\n
Rissveds survives roller coaster race<\/p>\n
Rissveds spent much of the race moving backward and forward through the field before finally attacking late to grab second place from Frei.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a bit of a roller coaster of a race,\u201d Rissveds said. \u201cEveryone was kind of going from forward to back. Riders are coming and going and positions are changing.\u201d<\/p>\n
At one point, she even spotted Richards after the British rider crashed.<\/p>\n
\u201cI saw something on the side of the course crawling,\u201d Rissveds said. \u201cApparently it was Evie and yeah, I hope she\u2019s OK.\u201d<\/p>\n
Despite struggling through the week leading into the race, the Swede said she finally started feeling good Sunday morning.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve been feeling really, really bad the whole week,\u201d she said. \u201cToday this morning I was finally feeling really good and excited to race.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rissveds also admitted Nov\u00e9 M\u011bsto has not exactly been kind to her in recent years.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it\u2019s the first time in three years I actually made it to the finish line,\u201d she said. \u201cI\u2019ve always been having bad luck here.\u201d<\/p>\n
Frei takes overall lead<\/p>\n
Even after losing second place in the sprint, Frei walked away from the Czech Republic with the overall World Cup lead. The Swiss rider praised both the atmosphere and the teamwork around her Specialized squad.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a super nice team effort,\u201d Frei said. \u201cTo race here with this atmosphere, with this crowd\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n
Frei also pointed toward the importance of the new Specialized Epic bike on Nov\u00e9 M\u011bsto\u2019s punishing course.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe new bike gives me so much,\u201d she said. \u201cOn the uphill it\u2019s so light and that saves some energy.\u201d<\/p>\n
After two rounds, Frei now leads the overall standings ahead of Stigger and Rissveds. Jackson sits sixth overall.<\/p>\n
Pieterse battles technical issues<\/p>\n
Puck Pieterse returned to World Cup mountain biking action but never fully found her rhythm on the technical Czech course.<\/p>\n
The Dutch rider finished eighth, more than two minutes behind Stigger, after struggling on one of the rocky technical climbs.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor me, the rocky skills are twice as hard,\u201d Pieterse said. \u201cThe uphill roots are difficult, but then in the downhills compared to Laura\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n
Still, Pieterse said she enjoyed being back racing mountain bikes despite the heat and difficult conditions.<\/p>\n
\u201cI enjoyed it,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s hard for me to be disappointed, so I cannot complain.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Laura Stigger put together a near-perfect performance at round two of the UCI Mountain Bike World Series. She…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":690572,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[445],"tags":[49,48,635,1700,82],"class_list":["post-690571","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-cycling","tag-mtb-features","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/690571","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=690571"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/690571\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/690572"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=690571"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=690571"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=690571"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}