Five Takeaways From The First Rounds Of The Cross Country World Cup

Blink and you may have missed it, but rounds one and two of the Cross country World Cup are done and dusted. After getting caught up on the action, read BIKE’s Five Takeaways from the season thus far.

Cross-country racing is thrilling

Many mountain bikers, especially ones predisposed to riding gravity, follow the Downhill World Cup and nothing else. While DH is an incredibly exciting sport, cross-country brings just as much thrilling action in its own way.

Related: Highlights From The Araxa World Cup XCO

The races this year have featured incredible action. After 9 laps of racing in the men’s race in Araxa, the win was decided in a sprint between four racers, including Victor Koretzky who clawed his way back into contention after suffering a mechanical.

Hailey Batten crushed Jenny Risved’s spirits when she rode off the front in the final lap of the race.

Even in Christopher Blevins’ win, he clawed his way to the front from 32nd place on lap one.

The head-to-head action and strategy on courses gnarly enough to make most of us consider walking our bikes around makes for a fantastic product.

Americans are killing it

There is not much else to say. In round one, Christopher Blevins took the win while FOUR American women, Hailey Batten, Savilia Blunk, Kate Courtney, and Kelsey Urban, finished in the top 10.

The American Women continued their strong show at Araxa when Batten and Blunk repeated their podium finishes, Courtney got 9th, and Urban was just off the top ten in 12th. Despite an unfortunate crash at the beginning of the men’s race at Araxa, Blevins clawed his way from 103rd back into 22nd.

In a sport that has been dominated by Europeans in recent years, an American resurgence is great to see.

Hailey Batten missed the memo about being tired from Short Track

The Short Track World Cup discipline, also known as XCC, is an often overlooked race held before the main show of the full course. Though a racer’s short track finish determines their start position in the XCO and the points from it count toward the overall, the discipline is not considered anywhere near as important as the main race on Sunday.

Before the season, the UCI made a change to the schedule and bumped the Short Track to the day before the event. Heading into the season, there was a lot of speculation that having less recovery time between races would make it hard if not impossible to compete in both and require riders to be strategic about expending their effort.

Hailey Batten must have not attended the meeting where it was decided that riders had to choose one or the other. Batten won both Saturday’s short track and Sunday’s XCO in decisive fashion. I guess you can’t tell her to pick one of them!

There is a great deal of competition in this year's racing, especially on the men’s side.

One of the best parts of being a fan of racing is never knowing who is going to win. When any number of racers could win the day, it makes for an exciting viewing experience

Thus far in the cross-country season, we have not seen a repeat winner. Additionally, the two men who have won a round each finished significantly lower in the other race. Given that Simon Andreassen could get 16th in Mairipora and go on to win the next weekend gives viewers a reason to tune in.

Though many of the athletes at the top of the standings have placed consistently through two rounds, no one is running away with it so far.

Specialized is doing something right.

This spring, Specialized released their new capable cross-country bike, the Epic 8. BIKE’s Julia Tellman raved about it, and as it turns out, the Epic has made a splash on the World Cup.

As it turns out, the Epic is not just good at looking fresh under Peter Sagan taking marketing laps. Aboard the Epic, Chris Blevins and Hailey Batten won a round, and Viktor Koretzky nabbed second twice.

After two rounds, Specialized Factory Racing is killing it in the overall standings. For the men, Koretzky is in first, Blevins is in third, and Martin Vidaurre Kossmann is in eighth. In the women’s Overall, Haily Batten leads and Sina Frei sits in 14th.

Related: World Cup Cross Country Overall Standings After the First Two Rounds

Generally, success is determined more by the riders and not the bikes, but the new Epic 8 and Epic WC certainly are not holding anyone back.

Whatever Specialized is doing in both their design and talent scouting departments, it is working.

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