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Topeak Sponsored Racers Win 2 Gold Medals, and 1 Bronze Medal at World Championships!
Topeak-Ergon's Irina Kalentieva and Team Scott-Swisspower's Nino Schurter win XC Gold while Team Scott-Swisspower racer Florian Vogel takes home a XC Bronze!
Irina the Greatest: World Champion
The old and new Mountain Bike Queen. Irina returns to the World Champion throne.
“What a day – simply unbelievable”. This was Kalentieva’s response to the events of a weekend that saw her re-claim her World Champion Title of 2007.
The World Championships took place in Australia on a technically very demanding course near Canberra. Although clearly fantastic result, it didn’t go entirely to plan despite a good start. “I had to stop, as I had a chain problem.”
With the chain repaired, Kalentieva was now over a minute down on the leader. However, Kalenieva was not going to accept that. “I gave my all. I wanted that title. I used the problem as a reason to push harder. I fought for it.”
The dream became reality as she crossed the line with a time of 1h43m20s. For the second time in her life following her 2007 victory she is the Cross Country World Champ.
“I’ll say it again. It is a dream. It makes it all worth-while. I cannot describe my joy”
An indepth interview with Irina covering her World Championship victory will follow shortly.
More photos of Irina at the World Championships
Nino Schurter and Florian Vogel made it happen winning a gold and bronze medal at the XC World Championships in Canberra!
During the whole race Nino and Florian, both Team Scott-Swisspower MTB racers, approached the race with a brilliant team tactic. Soon after the start a pair was formed in the front by Nino Schurter and Julien Absalon.
Attacking each other hard all the way both riders were able to match the horrendous pace set by the rival rider. Florian, a bit further back, was battling hard for third position and controlled the other riders during the whole race – keeping them away from Nino. On the final lap Nino put in a viscious attack after the feed zone and hit the finish line just 3 seconds in front of Julien Absalon... amazing! Florian put in some hard work on the last meters of the race - sprinting against José - but finally was the stronger rider and ended up with 3rd place and a Bronze medal.
Nino Schurter is the first rider to win the World Champion title in the Elite category just following the season as U23 rider.
More photos of Nino at the World Championships
The Topeak Team congratulates Irena, Nino and Florian on their hard work and great success!
