Val di Sole MTB World Cup

We went to Val di Sole in northern Italy for the second last of the mountain bike world cup series. Val di Sole translates to the valley of the sun and we weren't disappointed with temperatures around 30' daily! The dusty courses made for some great racing, in the XC, 4X and DH.

The women’s xc was won by Nathalie Schneitter with Italian favourite Eva Lechner in second place. The men’s race was a spectacular dual between World Champion Nino Schurter and world cup leader Julian Absolan. As we've seen before this year, Schurter managed to out sprint Absolan, thus taking over the leaders jersey with only one round for the world series to go!

In the womens downhill, Emmeline Ragot took a decisive 2 second victory on what was the most physically demanding course of the year. The men’s race was won by British rider Marc Beaumont, after many of the favourites failed to deliver. Fastest qualifier, Gee Atherton described his run as a struggle, fighting the bike rather than flowing while the second fastest qualifier Arron Gwin had a big crash after being 1.5 seconds up on the first split time.

The world cup circus heads across the water to America for the final round of the world cup series and then to Canada for the World Championships.