XCO Results: 2019 Mountain Bike World Championships, Mont-Sainte-Anne

Mountain Bike Worlds are in North America this year in Mont-Sainte-Anne, Quebec, and on Saturday, the Elite Women and Elite Men’s races took place on the challenging, technical course.

Elite Women

Kate Courtney (United States) looked to defend her 2018 Worlds title, while based on recent results, Jolanda Neff (Switzerland) and Pauline Ferrand-Prevot (France) seemed destined to renew their rivalry from the second half of the summer.

Early in the race, the x-factor was Australian Rebecca McConnell (Australia). McConnell dropped Neff early on and had a sizeable lead midway through the race.

This season, Ferrand-Prevot has been the unofficial comeback kid, returning from winter surgeries on her legs and climbing up the results sheet with each passing World Cup. The same proved true in Saturday’s World Championships.

The former tri-discipline world champ worked her way back to the front, and soon after catching McConnell, she unleashed an attack that gave her the lead for good. Ferrand-Prevot would not look back from there, taking here second-career World Championship after previously winning in Vallnord in 2015.

Neff bounced back to finish second and McConnell took third.

Courtney finished 5th, American Lea Davison 11th, Catharine Pendrel (Canada) 14th, Chloe Woodruff (United States) 15th, Eva Lechner (Italy) 21st, Hannah Finchamp (United States) 26th, Sofia Gomez Villafane (Argentina) 31st, Jenn Jackson (Canada) 32nd, Erin Huck (United States) 35th and Elisabeth Brandau (Germany) 40th.

Full results are below.

Elite Men

Nino Schurter (Switzerland) has a strong case to make as the best cross-country mountain biker ever, with seven world championships to his name, including four straight.

However, this season, Schurter’s dominance was challenged in a big way by Mathieu van der Poel, who swept the most recent block of World Cup races in Val di Sole and Lenzerheide. Fortunately for Schurter, Van der Poel opted to skip XCO Worlds to focus on Road Worlds at the end of this month.

You do not win seven Worlds titles without bringing your A-game when it counts, and Schurter again rose to the occasion in Quebec.

Early on, Schurter pushed the pace on a series of switchback climbs and the following technical descent in Laps 2 and 3 of 7 to reduce the lead group to him, Mathias Flueckiger (Switzerland) and Stephane Tempier (France) with half the race remaining. Flueckiger suffered a flat at the end of Lap 4, leaving Schurter and Tempier to battle it out.

Schurter’s early aggression finally gave him a decisive gap in Lap 5. He again attacked up the “Hell of Sainte-Anne” switchbacks and exited Lap 5 with a 40-second lead. He would not give it up, en route to his fifth-straight—and eighth overall—rainbow jersey.

Flueckiger bounced back from his flat to take second, and Tempier finished third.

Peter Disera (Canada) finished 34th, Grant Ferguson (Great Britain) 38th and Stephan Davoust (United States) 69th

Full results are below.

Featured image: Bart Hazen

Elite Women Results: 2019 XCO World Championships

Elite Men Results: 2019 XCO World Championships