Leogang (Austria) (AFP)
France's Pauline Ferrand-Prévot retained her title as the cross-country mountain bike world champion by winning the elite race on Saturday on the muddy and slippery course of Leogang, near Salzburg, in the Austrian Alps.
"PFP", 28, started alone in the lead from the first climb proposed at the start of the race and gradually increased his lead to secure a third world title after 2015 in Vallnord in Andorra and 2019 at Mont Sainte-Anne in Quebec.
The silver medal went to the Italian Eva Lechner, who crossed the line more than three minutes after the Frenchwoman, while the bronze went to the Australian Rebecca McConnell, beaten in the sprint by the cyclist from Alto Adige .
The Frenchwoman has constantly increased her lead and only a mechanical incident or a fall could prevent her from winning a new world title, the sixth rainbow jersey of her career, all individual events combined.
World champion on the road in 2014, cyclo-cross in 2015 and cross-country mountain biking in 2015, Pauline Ferrand-Prévot missed her Olympic Games in Rio in 2016.
After an operation for iliac endofibrosis on her left leg in January 2019, she returned to the world summit at the end of August of the same year, but had to be operated again in early January 2020 for the same injury.
The postponement of the Tokyo-2020 Olympics to the summer of 2021 (July 23-August 8) due to the Covid-19 pandemic gave him a little more time to recover from this relapse and prepare for the only title major which is missing from his impressive track record.
The World Cup races for the resumption at the end of September and the beginning of October in Nove Mesto three days apart had given a first clue to his state of form, with a third place and then a victory.
© 2020 AFP