Koretzky's anger at the finish line: It's not fair, it's disgusting

After winning the XCO World Championship, Tom Pidcock declared that he was completely against the change that the UCI had made the day before and that it had directly benefited him. But the anger of Frenchman Victor Koretzky, who finished fourth, was much greater.

Victor Koretzky believes that the UCI's decision conditioned the race: "It's like if on the road they leave me five kilometers ahead of the peloton".

Pidcock's comeback and performance to win the 2023 XCO World Championship was epic and that helped to calm the atmosphere a bit, but the truth is that Frenchman Victor Koretzky and Sam Gaze, second and fourth, 19 and 43 seconds respectively behind the champion, made an even bigger comeback to reach the top positions.

The difference is that Pidcock benefited from the UCI's last-minute decision and started ahead of them when his position should have been behind the New Zealander and the Frenchman.

 

His anger at the finish line was monumental and he made sure it showed, first with all kinds of gestures in front of the cameras and then with these statements to Le Equipe:

"It's not fair at all, it sucks, there are no other words " "It's like if on the road they leave me five kilometers ahead of the rest of the peloton" "Why him and not the others. I'm disappointed, I've proven to be almost as strong as him, the effort I have to make at the beginning of the race (to get to the front) is the effort I can't make at the end of the race. It's gotten to a disgusting level. I think everyone sees the problem."

"Why him and why not me, for example? When you're in front, you're going faster precisely because he's ahead, whereas if he'd started behind, it might have been different. In the starting loop, he was five or six positions ahead of me, those are the two lines that separate us, and those are the 15 seconds missing in almost the whole race to be with him. It's not normal, it's not legitimate. The UCI really has questions to ask. We all fight all year to train, to progress, and then we don't all start on equal terms."

"During the race, I wasn't thinking about this, I was in my race and I didn't have that in mind. My goal was to do my best. If I had been in front, I could have pulled a little bit like they did when I was hanging the whole race. I'm not far from the medal."

Despite everything, Koretzky's performance during the World Championships has been brilliant and after a couple of seasons with very discreet results in mountain biking we have finally seen him at his best level. In the Short Track he was second behind Gaze and in the XCO fourth after a comeback within reach of very few. Now it remains to be seen if he will be in the rest of mountain bike events until the end of the season or if he will return to the road.