Elite Men's Cross Country: - km
Absalon wins 4th XC title
Julien Absalon (© Joolze Dymond)
Frenchman Julien Absalon (Team Orbea) claimed his fourth consecutive UCI world championship men's XC title by dominating the 119-rider field in Fort William, Scotland.
Absalon won the 48-kilometer race with a final time of 02:17:06. Rounding out the men's podium was a pair of Swiss riders, as Ralf Naef and Florian Vogel won the silver and bronze medals respectively.
Adam Craig (Giant), currently the top American off-road cyclist internationally, ranked 13th in the world and 18th on the World Cup circuit, finished 4:51 behind Absalon. Jeremiah Bishop (Trek-VW) was the next-fastest American in 33rd, 6:47 off the winning pace. Jeremy Horgan-Kobelski (Subaru-Gary Fisher) placed 39th, 8:18 down, Michael Broderick (Kenda-Seven) finished 12:47 back to place 60th, Carl Decker (Giant) was 69th, 16:54 back, and Barry Wicks (Kona-Les Gets) was the last U.S. competitor to finish, placing 81st at +21:56.
Saturday's results served as a reminder that the European mountain bike pool features a formidable list of contenders less than a year away from the 2008 Olympic Games despite the U.S. being ranked seventh in the world. Amongst the top-20 finishers on Saturday were four Swiss riders, four Spanish, three German and two each from Belgium and France. Craig was the top non-European finisher while Canadian Seamus McGrath was the next-best in 31st place.
Assigned the 12th start position by the UCI based on his world ranking, Craig dropped to 31st after the first of six eight-kilometer laps, but quickly rebounded to the 16th position two laps later after posting the sixth-fastest lap time of the day. Throughout the remainder of the race though, Craig slipped a couple of spots per lap to cross the line in 22nd overall.
© BikeRadar & USA Cycling 2007
ELITE MEN'S CROSS COUNTRY RESULTS
| 1 Julien Absalon (France) | 2:17:06 | |
| 2 Ralph Näf (Switzerland) | 0:00:25 | |
| 3 Florian Vogel (Switzerland) | 0:00:54 | |
| 4 Fredrik Kessiakoff (Sweden) | 0:01:01 | |
| 5 Manuel Fumic (Germany) | 0:01:04 | |
| 6 Christoph Sauser (Switzerland) | 0:01:08 | |
| 7 Jean-Christophe Peraud (France) | 0:01:19 | |
| 8 Roel Paulissen (Belgium) | 0:02:03 | |
| 9 Lukas Flückiger (Switzerland) | 0:02:06 | |
| 10 José Antonio Hermida Ramos (Spain) | 0:02:09 | |
| 11 Christoph Soukup (Austria) | 0:03:10 | |
| 12 Carlos Coloma Nicolas (Spain) | 0:03:14 | |
| 13 Ivan Alvarez Gutierrez (Spain) | 0:03:24 | |
| 14 Peter Riis Andersen (Denmark) | 0:03:30 | |
| 15 Milan Spesny (Czech Republic) | 0:03:34 | |
| 16 Sven Nys (Belgium) | 0:03:36 | |
| 17 Moritz Milatz (Germany) | 0:03:45 | |
| 18 Rudi Van Houts (Netherlands) | 0:03:48 | |
| 19 Lado Fumic (Germany) | 0:04:03 | |
| 20 Marek Galinski (Poland) | 0:04:08 | |
| 21 Ruben Ruzafa Cueto (Spain) | 0:04:14 | |
| 22 Adam Craig (United States Of America) | 0:04:51 | |
| 23 Jürg Graf (Switzerland) | 0:05:07 | |
| 24 Yury Trofimov (Russian Federation) | 0:05:17 | |
| 25 Filip Meirhaeghe (Belgium) | 0:05:23 | |
| 26 Marco Aurelio Fontana (Italy) | 0:05:24 | |
| 27 Jochen Kass (Germany) | ||
| 28 Inaki Lejarreta Errasti (Spain) | 0:06:12 | |
| 29 Wolfram Kurschat (Germany) | 0:06:23 | |
| 30 Thomas Frischknecht (Switzerland) | 0:06:42 | |
| 31 Seamus McGrath (Canada) | ||
| 32 Martin Gujan (Switzerland) | 0:06:46 | |
| 33 Jeremiah Bishop (United States Of America) | 0:06:47 | |
| 34 Stefan Sahm (Germany) | 0:07:20 | |
| 35 Oliver Beckingsale (Great Britain) | 0:07:26 | |
| 36 Bart Brentjens (Netherlands) | 0:07:31 | |
| 37 Karl Markt (Austria) | ||
| 38 Tony Longo (Italy) | 0:07:40 | |
| 39 Jeremy Horgan-Kobelski (United States Of America) | 0:08:18 | |
| 40 Bas Peters (Netherlands) | 0:08:36 | |
| 41 Hannes Metzler (Austria) | 0:08:39 | |
| 42 Ian Wilkinson (Great Britain) | 0:08:43 | |
| 43 Massimo De Bertolis (Italy) | 0:08:51 | |
| 44 Liam Killeen (Great Britain) | 0:09:01 | |
| 45 Hector Leonardo Paez Leon (Colombia) | 0:09:16 | |
| 46 Todd Wells (United States Of America) | 0:09:25 | |
| 47 Chris Jongewaard (Australia) | 0:09:31 | |
| 48 Mirko Pirazzoli (Italy) | 0:09:45 | |
| 49 Martino Fruet (Italy) | 0:10:12 | |
| 50 Geoff Kabush (Canada) | 0:10:21 | |
| 51 Igor Bogdan (Ukraine) | 0:10:40 | |
| 52 Jelmer Pietersma (Netherlands) | 0:10:46 | |
| 53 Johann Pallhuber (Italy) | 0:10:58 | |
| 54 Karl Platt (Germany) | 0:11:21 | |
| 55 Paul Oldham (Great Britain) | 0:11:45 | |
| 56 Kenji Takeya (Japan) | 0:11:46 | |
| 57 Miha Solar (Slovenia) | 0:12:10 | |
| 58 Sid Taberlay (Australia) | 0:12:29 | |
| 59 Yader Zoli (Italy) | 0:12:39 | |
| 60 Michael Broderick (United States Of America) | 0:12:47 | |
| 61 Nicholas Craig (Great Britain) | 0:12:59 | |
| 62 Ricky Federau (Canada) | 0:13:13 | |
| 63 Julio Humberto Caro Silva (Colombia) | 0:13:33 | |
| 64 Cristobal Silva (Chile) | 0:13:47 | |
| 65 Luciano Caraccioli (Argentina) | 0:13:50 | |
| 66 Marcus Roy (New Zealand) | 0:14:04 | |
| 67 Klaus Nielsen (Denmark) | 0:15:03 | |
| 68 Sergiy Rysenko (Ukraine) | 0:15:43 | |
| 69 Carl Decker (United States Of America) | 0:16:54 | |
| 70 Marc Bassingthwaighte (Namibia) | 0:17:02 | |
| 71 Filip Eberl (Czech Republic) | 0:17:15 | |
| 72 Taavi Selder (Estonia) | 0:17:28 | |
| 73 John Paul Pearton (South Africa) | 0:17:38 | |
| 74 Dylan Cooper (Australia) | 0:17:43 | |
| 75 Valeriano Rubens Donizeti (Brazil) | 0:18:00 | |
| 76 Bilal Akgul (Turkey) | 0:18:08 | |
| 77 Maxim Gogolev (Russian Federation) | 0:18:20 | |
| 78 Andras Parti (Hungary) | 0:20:45 | |
| 79 Keiichi Tsujiura (Japan) | 0:21:21 | |
| 80 Johan Van Zyl (South Africa) | 0:21:27 | |
| 81 Barry Wicks (United States Of America) | 0:21:56 | |
| 82 Eero Jappinen (Finland) | 0:23:04 | |
| 83 Alexey Medvedev (Russian Federation) | 0:25:30 | |
| One lap behind | ||
| 84 Lenart Noc (Slovenia) | ||
| 85 John Jairo Botero Salazar (Colombia) | ||
| 86 Stuart Houltham (New Zealand) | ||
| 87 Martin Kraler (Austria) | ||
| 88 Javier Puschel (Chile) | ||
| 89 Caspar Austa (Estonia) | ||
| 90 Michael Northcott (New Zealand) | ||
| 91 Muammer Yildiz (Turkey) | ||
| 92 David Leiman (South Africa) | ||
| Two laps behind | ||
| 93 Milan Barenyi (Slovakia) | ||
| 94 Justice Makhale (South Africa) | ||
| 95 Yilmaz Kanat (Turkey) | ||
| 96 Dzintars Ozolins (Latvia) | ||
| 97 Dror Pekatch (Israel) | ||
| Three laps behind | ||
| 98 Ivica Mesaric (Croatia) | ||
| 99 Pavao Roset (Croatia) | ||
| DNF Cédric Ravanel (France) | ||
| DNF Kashi Leuchs (New Zealand) | ||
| DNF Robin Seymour (Ireland) | ||
| DNF Marti Gispert Labarta (Spain) | ||
| DNF Mannie Heymans (Namibia) | ||
| DNF Kevin Evans (South Africa) | ||
| DNF Marcin Karczynski (Poland) | ||
| DNF Simon Richardson (Great Britain) | ||
| DNF Eric Drower (New Zealand) |
