Saturday was the big one for XC - the Elite Women and Elite Men's races. The Women went off first, with the Men's race taking place later in the day.
Spectactor numbers had been rising gradually during the week, but Saturday was really busy with large groups walking round the course. Most fans were neutrally dressed, except for the occasional Swedish flag in support of Fredrik Kessiakoff (www.fredrikkessiakoff.com) and one large group clad head to toe in orange, cheering on the Dutch riders, in particular Rudi van Houts and Jelmer Pietersma.
Saturday also brought the TV helicopter for the first time, which did a great job of letting everyone know the location of the lead riders as it moved around the course. In addition to aerial coverage, the section of fire road above the 'Haggis Trap' cross-over had a quad bike camera crew riding next to the riders.
News had broken on Wednesday night that two riders had been excluded from the XC Worlds as a result of high hematocrit levels - Michael Weiss (Austria) and Margarita Fullana-Riera (Spain). Weiss had been training at altitude in Aspen, Colorado, shortly before the Worlds, and his exclusion caused some surprise amongst the riders.
With reigning World Champion Gunn-Rita Dahle (www.gunnrita.com/english/index.htm) absent through a season-long illness, Fullana-Riera sent home, and Chengyuan (world ranking #3) and Liu (#5) racing in the U23 Women, the Elite Women's field was looking a little depleted. Sabine Spitz (Germany) and Irina Kalentieva (Russia) were the favourites on the start line, along with Marie-Helene Premont (Canada). Also on the start line were 3 GB women, national champion Jenny Copnall, Ruth McGavigan and Elizabeth Scalia. After their initial non-selection caused somewhat of an uproar, a welcome U-turn from the British Cycling selectors saw them join the grid and give the spectators some local riders to cheer.
Since the U23 Women had completed 4 laps of the 8.6km course, the expectation was that the Elite Women would do 5 laps. Conditions were better for the Elite Women than the U23 Women but yet the Elite Women's race was cut to 4 laps, with very little explanation given.
Premont worked hard to build up a small gap on the first lap up the climb, but by the end of lap 1 a group of 12 had formed, including Kalentieva, Spitz, Jingjing Wang (China), the 2 Canadians Premont and Pendrel, Georgia Gould (USA) and Lene Byberg (Norway, pictured). After racing a few BMBS XC races in the UK earlier in 2007, Rosara Joseph (New Zealand) was putting her British riding experience to good use and was in also present. Petra Henzi meanwhile had a disastrous first lap by her standards, losing 2m 23s on the leaders after an early incident.
As the race progressed, it became clear that Kalentieva, Spitz and Wang were in a class of their own and that the winner would come from one of these riders. Maja Wloszczowska had to retire from a strong position after a crash, Elizabeth Scalia struggled up the main climb with an apparent moving saddle, to pull out shortly afterwards due to a broken seatpost, but the other two GB riders Copnall and McGavigan were receiving loud support all the way round the course.
Kalentieva slowly built a gap to win the Gold, producing the fastest lap of the entire race on her final lap, with Spitz in Silver 39s behind. Wang finished 3rd to win another medal for China. Rosara Joseph finished an excellent 5th, and Petra Henzi climbed from 39th at the end of lap 1 to 13th. Jenny Copnall moved up the field as the race progressed to end up 47th, with her GB team mate McGavigan 56th. Cheshire-based New Zealander Jenn O'Connor finished 52nd.
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