French Take Opening Gold in Relay

 

Mountain Bike World Championships

Val di Sole, Italy, June 17-22, 2008
Report & Images: Rob Jones

The podium, with Swiss, French and Italian teams celebrating their medals

France, a perennial runner up in the Team Relay, finally captured the world title to open the 2008 Mountain Bike world Championships in Val di Sole, Italy. Defending champions Switzerland, in a dramatic finish, caught host Italy less than 500 metres from the finish line to take silver. Great Britain had an extremely solid ride from Liam Killeen, who recorded the fastest lap of the day at 19:32, and the squad finished 14th overall.

The Team Relay requires both a strong team and a well planned rider order. France and the other top-5 finishers all started with their elite male rider, to open up a gap which they could then hopefully defend. For France, this was Jean-Christophe Peraud, who attacked on the first climb and rode away from Florian Vogel (Switzerland) and Marco Fontana (Italy) to put France in the lead position it would never relinquish. Peraud, who is obviously in good form, recorded the only sub-20 minute time for the opening lap (which included a start loop) at 19:55. For Great Britain it was Ian Bibby who took the opening lap, finishing 16th.

France's Alexis Vuillermoz crosses the line first

After Peraud, the French sent out Arnaud Jouffroy, their Junior rider (as did most of the top teams). Jouffroy was the fastest rider on his lap, moving France one minute and 23 seconds ahead of Slovakia, who had slipped into second ahead of Switzerland and Italy. Great Britain sent Junior man Alex Paton out second, who moved the team up to 13th.

Ian Bibby, the GB Team's first lap man

On the third lap, the top teams all went with their elite woman, which for France was Laurence Leboucher, who is having a very strong season in World Cup racing. Leboucher's time was only 11th fastest, but it was enough to keep the French in first, 16 seconds in front of the Ukraine, with Italy in third, 58 seconds down after Eva Lechner's strong ride. The Ukraine had sent out Mykhaylo Batsutsa, who recorded the fastest Junior time of the day, and will certainly be someone to watch in the Junior cross-country on Thursday. Similarly, Great Britain sent out Liam Killeen, who's fast lap jumped the British squad up to fifth. Switzerland had dropped to eighth in the standings after a relatively poor showing from Petra Henzi, leaving them 2:31 behind France.

Alex Paton was the GB Team's junior rider

The last lap was setting up for a show down of U23 riders: France had Alexis Vuillermoz, Italy had Cristian Cominelli and Switzerland had Nino Schurter, the defending world champion and U23 World Cup leader. But Schurter had two and a half minutes to make up, and it proved to be too much. He had the second fastest time (20:12) of the lap, behind American Adam Craig (19:49). Schurter came roaring up through the field from eighth, catching the Italian Cominelli within sight of the finish as he sprinted by him. Great Britain finished off with the female member of the team, Fiona MacDermid, who was up against many of the fastest men

Liam Killeen, coming back to form

Killeen feels that his ride shows that his form is coming on, and this helps build confidence for his cross-country race on Sunday.

"I wanted to do the Relay, and represent GB. It is important for us to enter it, and it brings the team together. I don't get to race with the Britsh team very often."

"I tend to like more technical stuff, and it was definitely technical and wet today. Before the start I felt strong and that I had a solid lap in me. I crashed early, on a slippery wodden bridge, but once I got into the lap, I nailed all the descents."

"This type of course I would definitely pick as a good one for me. The multiple climbs and changes in intensity suit me. And having a hard lap like this helps set me up for Sunday."

Results

1 France (Jean-Christophe Peraud, Arnaud Jouffroy, Laurence Leboucher, Alexis Vuillermoz) 1.24.45
2 Switzerland (Florian Vogel, Matthias Rupp, Petra Henzi, Nino Schurter) 2.22
3 Italy (Marco Aurelio Fontana, Gerhard Kerschbaumer, Eva Lechner, Cristian Cominelli) 2.23
4 Poland (Marcin Karczynski, Marek Konwa, Maja Wloszczowska, Dariusz Batek) 2.48
5 Czech Republic (Jaroslav Kulhavy, Jakub Magnusek, Katerina Nash, Jan Skarnitzl) 3.25
6 Canada (Raphael Gagne, Catherine Pendrel, Derek Zandstra, Evan Guthrie)
7 Netherlands (Bas Peters, Erik Groen, Laura Turpijn, Jelmer Jubbega) 5.26
8 United States Of America (Georgia Gould, John Bennett, Sam Jurekovic, Adam Craig) 5.27
9 Sweden (Emil Lindgren, Alexandra Engen, Olof Jonsson, Alexander Wetterhall)
10 Ukraine (Sergiy Rysenko, Andriy Gumenyuk, Mykhaylo Batsutsa, Nataliya Krompets) 5.38
11 Slovakia (Peter Sagan, Milan Barenyi, Janka Stevkova, Martin Skopek) 6.11
12 Australia (Lachlan Norris, Daniel Mcconnell, Charlton Durie, Dellys Starr) 7.10
13 Germany (Heiko Gutmann, Fabian Strecker, Ivonne Kraft, Jochen Kass) 8.13
14 Great Britain (Ian Bibby, Alex Paton, Liam Killeen, Fiona Macdermid) 10.34
15 Slovenia (Matej Lovse, Blaz Znidarsic, Luka Mezgec, Tanja Zakelj) 11.53
16 Japan (Ken Onodera, Keisuke Goda, Rie Katayama, Kohei Yamamoto) 12.28
17 New-Zealand (Kashi Leuchs, Rosara Joseph, Joshua Barley, George Bennett) 14.01
18 Israel (Shlomi Haimy, Amotz Nehoray, Inbar Ronen, Rotem Ishai) 15.53
19 Chile (Javier Eduardo Puschel, Mario Rodriguez Bravo,
Ricardo Hazbun Velasquez, Francisca Campos Salas) 16.44
DNF Spain (Ruben Ruzafa Cueto, Umbert Almenara Verges, Anna Villar Argente, David Lozano Riba)

The winning French quartet