The UCI Mountain Bike Marathon World Championships forged a highlight on Snowshoe, West Virginia this weekend, making it the primary time the endurance occasion has been held in North America in its 22-year historical past.
Defending MTB Marathon ladies’s world champion Mona Mitterwallner (Austria) will match up towards the 2 different riders on final yr’s podium, Candice Lill (South Africa) and Adelheid Morath (Germany). Among the 51 ladies on the beginning listing she’ll additionally need to battle 2016 MTB Marathon world champion Jolanda Neff (Switzerland), who’s on a comeback from lacking three months of competitors as a consequence of an ongoing sickness.
From the lads’s 88-rider begin listing, a brand new champion will probably be topped as two-time winner Henrique Avancini (Brazil) retired within the rainbow bands. Looking to take the jersey are 2023 podium finishers Martin Stošek (Czechia) and Lukas Baum (Germany) in addition to 2021 world champion Andreas Seewald (Germany) and two-time world champion Héctor Páez León (Colombia).
A strong roster for the house staff consists of reigning US Marathon champions Alexis Skarda and Carson Beckett, in addition to ladies’s runner-up and Marathon World Cup winner Hannah Otto and males’s runner-up Bradyn Lange.
Neff, the cross-country mountain bike Olympic champion from the Tokyo Games, appears to be like for her sixth MTB world title. She certified for her third Olympic Games in Paris, however handed on the chance to concentrate on respiratory remedy in her restoration from ongoing well being points.
After taking off a number of months of racing, she returned to motion in Andorra for the MTB World Championships, ending thirty fifth within the XCO, however moved into kind at a pair of Swiss XCO races, using to fourth place each occasions behind high compatriot Sina Frei, who will probably be on the beginning line in West Virginia.
With twin citizenship in Argentina and the USA, Sofia Gomez Villafañe will participate within the championships for Argentina, recent off her victory at Chequamegon MTB Festival. The win final weekend in Wisconsin gave her a agency lead within the total standings of the Life Time Grand Prix, with two races to go. Earlier this yr, Villafañe mentioned she wished to make the most of MTB Marathon Worlds right here within the US, so made it a part of her calendar.
Along with Villafañe, Skarda and Otto are amongst a lot of Life Time Grand Prix ladies’s rivals within the area, which additionally consists of Peta Mullens (Australia), Haley Smith (Canada) and Samara Sheppard (Australia).
Some of the highest males’s contenders who’re additionally competing within the Grand Prix embrace Lange, Matthew Beers (South Africa), Zach Calton (USA), Brendan Johnston (Australia), Cole Paton (USA), and Alex Wild (USA).
Snowshoe Mountain has hosted a number of rounds of mountain bike World Cups previously, however it’s a first for a world championship. The course is available in at 104km with 1,988 metres of elevation achieve, with 8.5km of pavement and the vast majority of course on a mixture of filth singletrack and doubletrack. However, organisers have famous that 24% of the course is “unknown”, which can be washed-out hearth roads.
The UCI MTB Marathon World Cup season finale at Snowshoe final yr, Otto soloed to victory forward of Canadian Smith and Lithuania’s Katazina Sosna. The males’s race resulted in a muddy three-up dash, received by Germany’s Simon Stiebjahn.
