UCI Mountain Bike World Cup: Lecomte and Flückiger on fire amid rainy race in Les Gets

Loana Lecomte and Mathias Flückiger have once again proved they are the most dominant cross-country mountain bikers heading into the Tokyo Olympic Games later this month. Both riders repeated their performances in Leogang to take the win on a slippery World Cup XCO course in Les Gets. 

As the Tour de France finished in Tignes, the mountain bikers had their French day in the spotlight in the nearby Alps-town of Les Gets for the fourth XCO race of the World Cup calendar. In the women’s race, Lonana Lecomte took her fourth win in a row ahead of Jenny Rissveds and Evie Richards. 

The race started with Olympic Champion Rissveds, who also looked on pace in Friday’s short track, leading from the gun. However, after the first lap, Lecomte had already opened a gap of 12 seconds on Rissveds, who was followed by Pauline Ferrand-Prévot. 

The group clawed Lecomte back but the Frenchwomen got an even bigger advantage when Ferrand-Prévot slipped out on a grassy section. After that, the race was on between Ferrand-Prévot, Rissveds, Richards, and Rebecca McConnell for the remaining podium positions. 

Rissveds battled to come in 51 seconds behind Lecomte, and Richards took a career-best third-place finish. 

“It’s special to race a World Cup in France, and I’m very very very happy to win in front of my family and friends,” Lecomte said.

• Les Gets: Can Nino Schurter get back to winning ways ahead of Tokyo Olympics?
• Best full-suspension mountain bikes

Flückiger, who won both the short track and XCO races in Leogang, has done the same thing in Les Gets. He took the victory in Friday’s short track, and the Swiss racer was leading Sunday’s race after the first lap. 

He was joined by Ondrej Cink, which was very reminiscent of how the race played out in Leogang. Cink, however, lost time on a downhill section, falling back to the chase group. 

Flückiger didn’t let up, maintaining his lead while Cink, Alan Hatherly, and Jordan Sarrou swapped positions as they chased. 

Flückiger proved that he’s the fastest man heading into Tokyo though with Cink crossing the line 25 seconds back and Sarrou coming into third, 35 seconds back. 

“I took a lot of confidence from the last World Cup and from this season, Flückiger said. “I’m really happy with my performance and how I could manage the gap I made on lap two. Everything came together again today.” 

Nino Schurter, the reigning Olympic Champion, finished in fifth. 

Many were wondering how Tom Pidcock would fare in his first race back from a broken collarbone. He looked on pace in the short track but crashed and lost places. On Sunday he DNF and said he struggled with the wet conditions and didn’t have great legs. 

“After the crash I was super motivated and positive I could get back, but after two laps I didn’t have the legs,” he said. “It was still raining hard and I thought there was a lot more to lose than there was to gain.”

• Tom Pidcock gunning for Gold at Tokyo Olympics