Madrid, Spain - The third stop of the UCI Mountain Bike World Cup took place this weekend in Madrid where Georgia Gould (Fort Collins, Colo.) scored her second fifth-place finish in three weeks.
On Sunday, the women’s field dropped to 90 riders from the 140 that raced in the first two rounds of the World Cups. The opening lap was a fast one with Marie-Helene Premont (CAN), Gunn Rita Dahle Flesjå (NOR), and Marga Fullana (SPA) setting a pace that no one else could match. Gould fought hard to bridge to the leaders but by the second lap was alternating the front position in a small chase group of four.
With Fullana dropped from the trio on the last of five dry laps, former world champ Dahle Flesjå outsprinted Premont to make an impressive comeback in only her second top-level event since taking a year off to recover from health problems. A little over a minute behind first and second place, Fullana claimed the podium’s third spot while Sabine Spitz (GER) made a late race charge from the lead chasers to secure fourth-place. Gould rounded out the top five, crossing the finish line two minutes and 38 seconds off the winning pace.
With two more rounds of the cross country World Cup to be contested before the U.S. Olympic Mountain Bike Team is selected, Gould and 2004 Olympian Mary McConneloug (Chilmark, Mass.) are the top American women in the World Cup standings
Gould sits in seventh-place with 360 points and McConneloug is not far behind in 16th with 218 points. Craigis currently 15th in the standings with 230 points, but Wells is just a mere ten points away in 16th place.
The cross-country World Cup now takes a three-week hiatus. U.S. Olympic hopefuls will resume their quests for spots on the Beijing-bound squad with round four slated for May 31-June 1 in Andorra. The UCI Mountain Bike World Cup continues next weekend however with the opening round of gravity racing in Maribor, Slovenia.
UCI Mountain Bike World Cup
Cross Country Round 3 – Madrid
May 3—4
Elite Women’s Cross Country
1. Gunn-Rita Dahle Flesjaa (NOR)
2. Marie-Helene Premont (CAN)
3. Margarita Fullana (SPA)
4. Sabine Spitz (GER)
5. Georgia Gould (Fort Collins, Colo.)
15. Mary McConneloug (Chilmark, Mass.)
26. Heather Irmiger (Boulder, Colo.)
41. Susan Haywood (Davis, W. Va.)
68. Susan Butler (Portland, Ore.)
