Granada runner David Valero won the bronze medal at the World Mountain Bike Championship in marathon mode in a race held in the North American resort of Snowshoe.
The Spaniard, a regular in the cross country modality – where he was Olympic medalist in Tokyo – has decided in recent months to compete in several events in this specialty with excellent results, now adding world bronze to the European runners-up.
Furthermore, the BH Coloma Team runner wants to fight for the rainbow jersey, excited to win in the same setting where he won the cross-country World Cup, although in this case he has to face more than 100 kilometers of the route and more than two thousand meters of accumulated unevenness.
In a situation like this, the tactics are decisive, far from starting very strong, although, yes, the Spaniard cannot lose the path of specialists and some runners who, like him, come from the “short” category.
This is the case of the French Victor Koretzky, who came to test the favorites and from the start he put himself in front and tried to win with that tactic; Meanwhile, the rest of the favorites decided to stay at a “cautious” distance that reached a minute and a half with 20 kilometers to go.
That’s when everything started to change, as the five cyclists started to accelerate, Valero was closing in on them and they soon caught up with the Frenchman.
Valero said a few days ago that if he could reach the final climb of the circuit in the lead of the race he would have a good chance of winning.
The tactic worked for him and he reached the kilometers where he wanted, but then the attacks of all the leaders of the race began and the Dane Simón Andreassen was the last to launch an “axe blow” that allowed him to win, with a time of 4.33:08 and just ten seconds ahead of American Christopher Blevins (4.33:18), who overtook Valero in the final pedal strokes and took out the Spaniard by just two seconds (4.33:20 ).
Pablo Rodríguez was the next Spaniard, in 20th place (4.43:32) and José María Sanchez finished in 27th place (4.46:35).
Source: La Verdad
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