The gold medals went to Gabriele Andrasiuniene (LTU) and defending champion Krystof Bogar (CZE) on the third day of CX80 World MTBO Championships in Bulgaria.
The sun was back on Thursday morning as the athletes rode off on the Middle distance at the southern end of the forest terrain that was also used for yesterday’s Mass start.
Today’s courses were flatter than yesterday and 9,5 and 12,0 kilometers for women and men respectively.
Here 32-year-old Gabriele Andrasiuniene took a comfortable win and won her first WMBTOC gold medal, 30 seconds ahead of Valerie Kamererova (CZE) with Tuesday’s Sprint World Champion Ruska Saarela (FIN) in third despite leading early in the race.
Women’s podium. Photo: Nina Hoffmann
Martina Tichovska (CZE) was fourth, while Sweden’s Tilda Palm and Gabriella Gustafsson finished fifth and sixth today.
In the men’s race, Krystof Bogar continued the Czech streak of gold medals after Jan Hasek’s two wins in the previous days.
Bogar was in fourth position after 30 minutes of racing, but managed to defend his Middle title from last years WMTBOC on homeground in Czechia after a strong finish today.
Andre Haga (FIN) was 26 seconds behind and took silver, his first medal in Bulgaria. Ignas Ambrazas (LTU) was third, 12 seconds further behind and claimed the bronze.
Men’s podium. Photo: Nina Hoffmann
Then followed another half a minute down to the rest of the podium, where Samuel Pokala (FIN), Morten Örnhagen Jørgensen (DEN) and Vojtech Stransky (CZE) finished in that order with only seven seconds separating them
Andreas Waldmann (AUT) led the race after three-quarters of the course, but finished in 13th after a time loss towards the end.
In W20, Italy’s Iris Aurora Pecorari won her second gold medal in Bulgaria and by an impressive margin. Silver medalist Minna Palm (SWE) was 57 seconds behind, while Yrsa Röjgård (SWE) snatched the bronze.
W20 podium. Photo: Nina Hoffmann
Eevert Kenttamies (FIN) won M20 by beating early leader Antoine Lesquer (FRA) by 30 seconds. Eemil Koskinen was the second Finn on the junior men’s podium after taking bronze.
M20 podium. Photo: Nina Hoffmann
Find results, tracking and relive the basic stream on IOF LIVE.
After a day’s rest tomorrow it’s time for the long distance on Saturday – the final race in the individual CX80 MTBO World Cup.