A course as technical as this one will certainly suit Jolanda.
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Congrats to the Swiss! Podium sweep 1-2-3
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Off topic, but I thought she benefitted from being small and light, and likely running much lower pressure. Moreso than just tyre choice.
Congrats Neff! Think experience paid off on a technical course like this.
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Such a good race from the young Hungarian Vas. She’s still racing U23 and to be fair all the big names were in this race.
Didn’t think this course would suit Loana Lecomte and was proved correct. She needs 5 min climbs to decimate the other ladies. Good ride to 6th though.
And well done to Jolanda, Sina, and Linda. Great results for the Swiss.
And what a stark contrast at the finish line between the MTB ladies and the roadies two days ago. Everyone happy for each other and keeping MTB better than road once again (hehe).
When’s the next World Cup? Can Lecomte win again this season? Will PFP be fired up for some redemption. Will Kate rock up on a 2020 Spark? Will Jolanda go on a streak now? Will Vas move up and if so will Pinkbike put her into the Fantasy XC field?
Great riding. On to the TT and then the track. 
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Hop Suisse! 
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in this (dutch) link: Olympische Spelen: 'Mathieu van der Poel-plank' blijft bij de vrouwen wél liggen | WielerFlits
they are mentioning all the changes to the course due to the weather, closed A lines and put the “mvdp plank” ( 
) back in place.
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Incredible performance. The entire team executed.
A 1 2 3, that’s not something we’re likely to see again.
It’ll be fascinating to see how the rest of the WCs and World Champs play out. We’re definitely seeing some new narratives.
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Anyone see Jolanda’s near OTB on the ramp? MVDP needs to get some lessons from her.
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This was nearly a major crash. Neff did amazingly well to stay on. If she went OTB there she would have been seriously hurt.
XC course designers seem to be trying to out do each other on making them more and more technical/dangerous. This course felt like it has gone too far.
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I guess it shows the Supercaliber has enough travel !
I would not do that course on a DH bike with full pads…
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I’m 100% positive (in my mind) that PFP crashed because she was looking left to see if she can cut off Neff.
On the replay, you can see that just after her head turns left she makes a correction to the right and loses traction on the front wheel. Of course, only she knows if it was the chicken or the egg that came first. Either way, the distraction played a significant part.
For Kate, my armchair opinion is that since Snowshoe 2019 there has been “too much” training and not enough racing. I have no doubt she has much better fitness and numbers than when she won world championships, but she doesn’t look as sharp on race day. Covid and injuries have really limited her opportunities to race. She also hasn’t looked very comfortable in wet/slick conditions either, CA doesn’t get much like that.
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Cyclingnews has some quotes from Neff calling out PFP.
“It’s not the first time she does something like that, I’m just glad I wasn’t near her anymore, I was glad I was riding on my own and safe.”
There’s always that one squirrelly rider on the group ride…
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On the mainstream NBC commentary they kept talking about how no one would have picked Jolanda to win, and that Lacomte must’ve been suffering from nerves. But this is the most technical course I think I’ve ever seen–and in the wet, it was always going to favor Neff. Good for her.
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What happened to Kate Courtney? Did she crash out on the first lap before nbc coverage started?
She didn’t seem to get a good start (not sure if she tustled with some one or just bad positioning) and lost a lot of places from the start. Then at the first obstacle the field backed up a lot with a lot of dismounts and she got stuck behind them and must have been one of the last. She made some time back up but she was always going to struggle after the start.
100% agree. I just find womens road cycling so hard to get into, whereas womens XC is really exciting and unpredictable.
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Been following KC and rooting for her for a bit. I have to agree, she is not keeping up with the competition. I wouldn’t even put her in contention in any race at the world cup level at this point.
This is my armchair opinion, so take it with a grain of salt. I agree with the training comment, except that I think it’s too much training things that don’t win her races. She seems to spend so much time in the gym and doing balance exercises and other unconventional stabilizing exercises. She kind of made a name for herself being able to do these “tricks” in the beginning, but I think she needs more power and skill to keep up with these other racers before she can focus on these sharpening exercises.
I also agree, she does not handle the bike well. Particularly in wet conditions. Her biggest disaster races the last two years have been on wet courses, but even watching her on dry courses, she isn’t the handler she needs to be. Right now she doesn’t have any real strengths compared to the rivals. She isn’t stronger than the PFP type riders and she can’t handle a bike as well as Lecomte or JN. Hell, she’s not even the best American right now. Haley Batten is better and on the rise.
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Completely unrelated…bad things happen in bike races sometimes. It doesn’t mean his strategy was flawed.
his long-term goal had always been the Olympic MTB race…dumping that goal would have been foolish, IMO.
He walked away with a stage win and almost a week in the maillot jaune. It isn’t like he walked away empty handed. I’d argue that his Tour was every bit as successful as WvA’s
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She came off her bike at that bottleneck on the first rock feature. The camera accidentally cutaway, but when it came back she was trying to gather her bike and was at the rear of the field having been in the top handful/10 prior.
I think Jolanda won the race with that spectacular high line and left hand sweep up the rock face. It was so good. Psyched PFP out completely. Disrupted the field and she was gone. She won by being the best mountain biker, riding almost everything in stark contrast to many behind.
Does anyone know if/where KC finished?
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