A strong Lithuanian team won by 2.55 over Italy, with Finland third, 3.13 down, in Latvia today. In an exciting race in mainly forested terrain with many small paths and some hills, on a bright but windy day, the lead changed several times.
Martin Illig, riding for Austria 2, had a flyer on the first leg, coming to the change-over more than a minute before anyone else. Gabriele Andrasiuniene, winner of the Long race, rode well on first leg for Lithuania and sent Jonas Maiselis out in fifth place. He was fifth fastest on the second leg, good enough to hand over to Ignas Ambrazas in the lead.
For Italy, the junior star Iris Aurora Pecorari came in fourth from the first leg, and Sprint winner Fabiano Bettega improved this to second. The experienced Luca Dallavalle completed his course to finish in a comfortable second place.
Ruska Saarela was twentieth into the first-leg changeover, but a fine ride from Jussi Laurila, who had the fastest time on leg 2, gave World Cup leader André Haga the platform to pick up 6 more places and finish third.
Krystof Bogar, Czechia had the fastest time on leg 3, bringing his team into sixth place.
Mixed Relay results
- LTU 1 (Gabriele Andrasiuniene, Jonas Maiselis, Ignas Ambrazas) 2:17:41
- ITA 1 (Iris Aurora Pecorari, Fabiano Bettega, Luca Dallavalle) 2:20:36
- FIN 1 (Ruska Saarela, Jussi Laurila, André Haga) 2:20:54
- SUI ! 2:21:15
- AUT 1 2:23:03
- CZE 1 2:23:43
The Latvian organisers provided three well-organised and challenging competitions on interesting and varied terrain, all based on the same arena, for Round 2 of the CX80 World Cup in MTB Orienteering, with good-quality TV-coverage of the shorter races. The final round will be held in conjunction with this year’s World MTBO Championships, scheduled for 10-15 September in Shumen in north-east Bulgaria.