Puck Pieterse (Netherlands) and Simone Avondetto (Italy) won the elite titles at the UEC Mountain Bike European Championships (XCO) held in Cheile Grădiștei, Romania, racing under heavy rain and in muddy conditions.
There were 331 cyclists from 31 countries, and Switzerland topped the medals table for all disciplines with 11 medals, including three golds.
Pieterse won the elite women’s event, which competed under the worst of the weather conditions, after she took an early race lead and then crossed the finish line 1:12 ahead of runner-up Mona Mitterwallner (Austria) and 2:15 ahead of third-placed Nina Benz (Germany).
“The day before her 22nd birthday, Puck Pieterse gave herself an amazing present. In Romania she renewed her European MTB XCO title,” Pieterse’s trade team Alpecin-Deceuninck wrote in a post to social media following the race. “In epic weather conditions, she rode away from her biggest rival Pauline Ferrand-Prévot just after halfway [through] the race.”
Unfortunately, World Champion Pauline Ferrand-Prévot’s race came to an early end and she was forced to abandon due to a mid-race crash. Ferrand-Prévot won the opening short track event had lined up as one of the race favourites. She was leading the early stages of the XCO event with Pieterse before crashing.
In the elite men’s race, Avondetto won the race ahead of pre-race favourite Simon Andreassen (Denmark), who won the opening short track event.
The Danish rider suffered an untimely mid-race puncture in the race against Avondetto and ended up finishing in second place at 50 seconds back.
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Third place went to Julian Schelb (Germany), who finished 1:07 behind the day’s winner.