Bodes well for 75 days of the Olympic Games!
Loana Lecomte won the MTB World Cup round in the cross-country event near Albstadt, Germany.
The 21-year-old Haut-Savoyarde confirms after a 2020 season marked by a title of world champion under 23 and a first World Cup victory in Nove Mesto in the Czech Republic last November.
This is his second victory in just three World Cup starts.
Loana Lecomte took control of the race on the first of five laps, and only increased his lead.
Just behind her, rainbow jersey on her back, Pauline Ferrand-Prévot (29 years old) took second place (+ 0′53 ′ ').
Part more cautiously, the native of Reims, gradually returned to her opponents, and in particular to the Dutch Anne Terpstra.
The American Haley Batten finally completed the podium of the day.
French double during the first round of the Mountain Bike World Cup in Albstadt, Germany 🇫🇷👏 # lequipeVELO #lequipeVTT pic.twitter.com/uV5msWRZkr
- L'Équipe channel (@lachainelequipe) May 9, 2021
An Olympic qualification almost assured Lecomte
With this victory, Loana Lecomte is now almost guaranteed to participate in her first Olympic Games, in Tokyo this summer. " I do not believe it ! My goal today was to impose myself, it's done. I didn't know if I was capable of it. So I'm very happy to have done it, smiled the winner of the day at the microphone of Red Bull TV. We know that the first two World Cups will qualify for the Olympic Games, I want to be there and 50% of the work has therefore been done. Now there is Nove Mesto in a week, where I won my first World Cup last year. We'll see if I can win again. "
The cross-country event is doing quite well for the France team. Since the discipline's integration into the Olympic program in 1996, the Blues have won four titles, including one for women, with the victory of Julie Bresset in London in 2012. Pauline Ferrand-Prévot is, for her part, already qualified for this event, the goal of his season.
