Nikoline Splittorff (DEN) took a crushing victory in today’s sprint, winning her third gold medal in three days at the European MTBO Championships and CX80 MTBO World Cup in Lithuania. In the men’s event, Italian Fabiano Bettega won his first gold medal at an international championship by a large margin.
Splittorff was not the fastest in the first few legs of the 6.8-kilometer sprint course. Instead, Ruska Saarela (FIN), Algirda Mickuvienė (LTU) and Camilla Søgaard (DEN) showed great speed on the first half of the course. But in the track-rich terrain towards the end of the course, Splittorff was in a class of her own and took a huge victory with a 47-second margin. Ruska Saarela grabbed the silver – her third medal in Vilnius, while home favorite Mickuvienė snatched the bronze one second ahead of Søgaard.
Women’s podium. All photos: Donatas Lazauskas
In the men’s competition, it was very even to begin with. But on the way to control 10, Fabiano Bettega took a fast route choice up the hill and created a lead. He didn’t let go of it in the last half of the 7.6 kilometers and thereby won his first ever championship title. Miika Nurmi (FIN) was 33 seconds slower in second place, while yesterday’s winner from the host nation, Jonas Maišelis, rode strong in the final kilometers and sprinted his way to the bronze.
Men’s podium
In the European Junior and Youth MTBO Championships today’s winners were:
W17 – Adela Ryglova CZE by 0.39
W20 – Malin Lara Roehrl SUI by 1.15
H17 – Rado Kalc ITA by 0.14
H20 – Augustin Leclere FRA by 0.59
Find the video stream from today’s race, results and GPS tracking in IOF LIVE.
With today’s sprint, the individual competitions at the championships are over and tomorrow the seniors will race a mixed relay, while the junior and youth classes race relays in their championships.
Follow the relays on IOF TV and IOF LIVE.
Leading EMTBOC results – Sprint
Women
1 Nikoline Splittorff DEN 23:45
2 Ruska Saarela FIN 24:32
3 Algirda Mickuvienė LTU 24:49
4 Camilla Søgaard DEN 24:50
5 Marika Hara FIN 25:07
6 Gabriella Gustafsson SWE 25:25
Men
1 Fabiano Bettega ITA 24:14
2 Miika Nurmi FIN 24:47
3 Jonas Maišelis LTU 24:57
4 Ignas Ambrazas LTU 25:16
5 Teemu Kaksonen FIN 25:20
6 Samuel Pokala FIN 25:31