Loana Lecomte wins a difficult XCO World Cup in Les Gets

With a very different scenario from the Short Track, where rain and mud took center stage, a technical World Cup was held in Les Gets in which Loana Lecomte was once again the fastest. Her fourth victory out of four races.

Loana Lecomte wins the 2021 Les Gets World Cup

The first surprise of the day could be seen from the start when the Spaniard Rocio del Alba Garcia, starting from position 28, took the lead and launched an attack with which she got a small advantage of several seconds in first position. It had been many years since a Spanish woman had led a World Cup.

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But the first lap began to take perspective and soon Loana Lecomte imposed a pace that no one could follow. Jenny Rissveds held second, Pauline was third and Rocio was fourth. The rain did not stop and the crashes followed one after another, so the race was wide open.

The technical zones that had been included in the circuit of Les Gets as a novelty for this 2021 took much more prominence than we thought when the rocks and roots became very slippery with rain and mud. In fact some tracks were closed by the organization.

French rider Loana Lecomte tried to go solo as she had done in other races, but the work of Pauline Ferrrand Prevot, Jenny Rissveds and Bec McConnell allowed them to make contact with Lecomte on lap 2 and it looked like the fight for the victory was going to be a close one.

But the track conditions were taking their toll before the end of lap 2 and both Jenny Rissveds and Pauline Ferrand Prevot both suffered crashes that mentally took them out of the fight for first place. Loana Lecomte took advantage of the situation to reopen the gap to first place and Australian rider McConnell took second position.

From lap 4 the race changed from what we had seen at the beginning to return to the trend of this season. Loana Lecomte led the race with absolute dominance and almost 50 seconds ahead of the chasing group in which were Pauline Ferrand Prevot and Bec McConnell. Sweden's Jenny Rissveds fought with them in fourth position and fifth was Evie Richards.

But since Friday, Jenny Rissveds had shown that she was very strong in Les Gets, so when she recovered from the fall again she started to impose a very high pace with which she caught and overtook McConnel to take second place. Meanwhile, Pauline Ferrand Prevot suffered a small setback that relegated her to fifth place while Evie Richards consolidated fourth.

The final lap began with Lecomte as solid as the first and she was on her way to her fourth victory. A winning streak that started in Albstadt and with which she had not given other riders a chance to win any World Cups. In second position Jenny Rissveds seemed to be riding comfortably with a 30-second lead over third, Evie Richards. The Brit was riding her best race of the year despite multiple crashes, but McConnell and Pauline Ferrand Prevot were close behind with the final meters to go.

With no surprises and despite a bad position in the Short Track on Friday, France's Loana Lecomte came back to finish first and win the 2021 Les Gets World Cup.

Jenny Rissveds was second at 51 seconds, Evie Richards third at 1:10 minutes, Pauline Ferrand Prevot fourth at 1:51 minutes and Rebecca McConnell fifth at 1:55 minutes.

Results Women 2021 Les Gets XCO World Cup 

1. Loana Lecomte
2. Jenny Rissveds
3. Evie Richards 
4. Pauline Ferrand Prevot
5. Rebecca McConnell
6. Anne Tauber
7. Sina Frei
8. Yana Belamoina
9. Ronja Eibl
10. Eva Lechner