Puck Pieterse fights back well in Austria, but misses out on the prizes in short race

Sina Frei won Friday evening’s Short Race in muddy conditions at the Mountain Bike World Cup in Leogang, Austria. It was already the Swiss rider’s second Short Race victory of the year. Puck Pieterse, winner last week in Nove Město, had to settle for eighth place after a difficult start but still produced a strong recovery ride.

Pieterse returned to her mountain bike last week in Nove Město, where she immediately won the Short Race on Friday. In the Czech Republic, she held off her rivals after just over 21 minutes of racing, before finishing eighth in Sunday’s Cross Country event. That men’s race was won by Tom Pidcock, who is not in Austria this week, just like Mathieu van der Poel, because of the Tour of Switzerland.

Pieterse started from the second row in Salzburgerland and had to put a foot down in the opening phase. By the end of the first lap, which the leaders completed in around 2:30, she had already come through from a fairly long way back: nineteenth place, 17 seconds behind the front group.

Jenny Rissveds was the rider taking control at the front, while Pieterse did set the fastest lap of all the women in lap three, according to the data. That was about the only thing still easy to identify, because the heavy rain in the Alps had already left the riders almost unrecognizable under a thick layer of mud. In any case, on such short laps it remained very difficult to make up a lot of time.

Swiss riders Alessandra Keller and Sina Frei tried to put pressure on Sweden’s Rissveds at the front, with Keller choosing to attack on the penultimate lap. Rissveds responded and even added another acceleration of her own, but in the end it was Frei who once again came away with the victory.

Pieterse eventually finished eighth. Considering she had been riding in 21st place earlier in the race, that was still a strong performance from the Dutch rider. Anna Terpstra finished seventeenth.

Author: David Bavin-Hobbs - [email protected]