Nino Schurter, Sabine Spitz win cross country at Andorra World Cup stop
Schurter, Spitz take the flowers in the Andorra stop of the 2013 UCI Mountain Bike World Cup
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Nino Schurter (Scott Swisspower MTB) prevailed in a last-lap duel with Ondrej Cink (Multivan Merida) to win the Andorra round of the UCI Mountain Bike World Cup on Saturday.
Schurter beat Cink by just six seconds to win in 1:27:07.
“It was a crazy race,” said Schurter. “I had a bit of bad luck in the first loop, I flatted in the first descent. I needed quite a lot of power to close that gap to the chase group and then Cink was already 20, 30 seconds in front of them. Then in the last lap I was able to catch Cink; it was a crazy battle. A really hard last lap.”
Stéphane Tempier (BH-SR Suntour-KMC) finished third at 11 seconds.
The women’s race was closer yet. Sabine Spitz (Haibike) put in a last effort over the final 200 meters to take her first World Cup win since 2002, hitting the line in 1:26:54, just a second better than runner-up Katerina Nash (Luna). Eva Lechner (Colnago Sudtirol) finished third at four seconds.
“Eight weeks ago I crashed on my home course in Albstadt [before the World Cup], and, yeah, it’s amazing to win,” said Spitz. “I never expected to come back like this. I had hoped for a top-10 place … but this win is unbelievable.”
Schurter leads the men’s series with 820 points, followed by Daniel McConnell (Trek) with 540 and Julien Absalon (BMC) with 510.
Tanja Zakelj (Unior Tools) tops the women’s standings with 790 points, followed by Lechner with 630 and Nash with 615.
Just two events remain in the World Cup cross-country series: Mont-Sainte-Anne in Québec (Aug. 10), and Hafjell, Norway (Sept. 14-15).