Fourth in the penultimate round of the Cross-country World Cup this Sunday in Lenzerheide (Switzerland), Loana Lecomte seized the title even before the last event. The hour of consecration for the 22-year-old Frenchwoman.
He is rightly said that fourth place in all competitions is the worst for an athlete, the one that robs him / her of a medal and makes him / her the first loser. Not for Loana Lecomte who finished at the foot of the podium this Sunday in Lenzerheide (Switzerland), the scene of the fifth and penultimate round of the MTB World Cup. Briton Evie Richards, newly crowned world champion in Val di Sole, arrives at 1’12 ”, the Frenchwoman is guaranteed to win the Cross-country World Cup two weeks before the last scheduled round in Snowshoe, USA. She succeeds Julie Bresset, the only French representative to have won the supreme title so far, ten years ago. The 22-year-old Haut-Savoyarde was not mistaken.
Lecomte at the top
Smiling, she took advantage of the last few hundred meters of the race to clap fans before crossing the line behind Australian Rebecca McConnell and Swedish Jenny Rissveds. This world title that comes to reward the very good season of the Frenchwoman, victorious in the first four rounds in Albstadt, Nove Mesto, Leogang and in Les Gets, and sixth at the Olympic Games in Tokyo. On the other hand, ill, she had to withdraw from the World Championships in Val di Sole recently. Already decorated in the Espoirs with world and European championship titles last year, Lecomte did not take long to assert himself in the big leagues. The other French woman expected on this Lenzerheide course, Pauline Ferrand-Prévôt, has decided to put her bike away for the end of the season. Mentally and physically tired, the three-time cross-country world champion, chasing Lecomte in the general classification, announced her forfeit and a return to the plowed in 2022.
