Continuing a great weekend for the Kiwis, Anton Cooper added another World Cup XC race to his rapidly growing collection at Mont-Sainte-Anne, Quebec yesterday. Leading from the gun, the Cantabrian increased his lead lap after lap finally finishing over six minutes ahead of second place.
To keep him motivated during his dominating ride, his Trek World Racing team provided lap splits comparing him to the Pro/Elite field, and he was lapping at a pace that would’ve put him in the top 15 of the Pro race, at least for the four laps that the Juniors raced.
Report and results via cyclingnews.com
From Anton’s blog:
“This morning I raced in the 5th round of the UCI MTB World Cup in Monte Saint Anne Canada. The track was damp in the trees due to the rain on the couple of days building up to the race and this only got slipperier as the race went on as mud from the riders tyres was dragged over the rocks and roots. I decided to run a larger volume 2.2 tyre due to the large amount of protruding rocks etc and they paid off giving a nice smooth ride. I had a good start and soon took the lead before entering the first singletrack which then popped out onto the first main climb of the lap. At the top of the climb I had started to open out a gap on the riders behind me and from there onwards I didn’t look back. Midway through the race my front derailleur started to play up due to some sand and other muck jamming it up and not allowing it to drop down out of the big ring. This forced me to big ring a few climbs I hadn’t particularly planned on but in the end it didn’t cost me much time and I went on to win by about 6mins over the Canadian National Champion in 2nd and the American rider Keegan Swenson just behind in 3rd. I am really happy with how the week has been and with how I rode and can’t wait for next weekend in Windham, USA!”
SWEEEET, GO ANTON!! GO TREK!!! GO THE KIWIS!!!