Online Exclusive: '08 Fort Bill World Cup XC

Pack fill on the first hill--off their bikes and pushing. Colin Meagher

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Women's XC racing.

What a beautiful day in the Scottish Highlands! The sun is out, the wind up a bit, and the ladies were ready to tear it up.

I was kind of hoping that the Chinese women would come out swinging after the Andorran drubbing they took last week. I even bet Rob Jones from Canadian Cyclist that the podium would be 2 Chinese, Gunn-Rita, MHP, and Fullana. Well, two out of 5 ain’t bad, I guess; but now I owe Rob a bottle of Scotch.

Heading into the first corner, it was Marie Helene Premont out front, but on this course that doesn’t really mean much: there’s a lot of fire road before the single track, so it wasn’t like she got the hole shot. We (the media herd) loaded a shuttle van to get to the fun stuff—about the mid point of the course—and just managed to squeak in ahead of the leaders: Margarita Fullana and MHP. Well out in front. Like “barring a major melt down the race is over” out in front. The rest of the bunch was already at least 20 seconds back. That may not seem like much, but on an XC course with horsepower to burn it was automatically a battle for 3rd place.

In the early stages, it looked like the Luna women were going to dominate the rest of the podium: first Georgia Gould rolled by with a top 5 spot, then Katerina Nash in about 8th, followed immediately by Catherine Pendrell. There’s a lot of road on this course, so team tactics looked to be in play, but then the field started fragmenting. By lap 2 Georgia Gould was still holding 4th, but well away from her teammates. In lap 3 the Luna train was started to fade. Eventually, the Luna women finished 11th, 12th, and 14th, making them the trade team of the race and of the series.

Meanwhile, the leaders were swapping pulls until Lap 4 when Fullana took a flier off the front, gaining a 15 second lead on MHP. It looked to be all over from that point, as MHP doesn’t like to lose contact when she’s up front, and dangling at that point usually means that you’re going to start moving backwards; but in lap 5 she stormed back to Fullana, took a long draft to recover, and then made her move into the lead. She finished with a commanding 13-second win—not a crushing victory, but solid.

The final podium was: MHP, Fullana, Sabine Spitz, Lene Byberg, and Laurence Leboucher.

Go HERE for a gallery of images that accompany this story.

Margarita Fullana off the front in lap 4. Colin Meagher