Nino Schurter (Scott-Odlo) finished the 2015 Cross-country World Cup season with three straight wins, and he continued the streak at the first round of 2016, in Cairns, Australia.
Cairns has a long history in mountain biking, stretching back to the 1996 World Championships. This year's event will be a final test event for organizers before they host the World Championships next year (2017), and then the Commonwealth Games (for cross-country) the year after.
Two years ago, riders faced torrential rain, turning the course into a mud bog, however, despite rain earlier in the week, on race day the 4.3-kilometre course was hard, dusty and fast. After a flat start loop, the riders head out to a long and, in places, technical climb for the first half of the circuit. Once at the top, it is a fast and technical descent to the bottom, with a final flat loop to the finish. The dry conditions led to numerous riders suffering flats on the sharp rocks and roots.
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The men's race was missing only one top ranked rider - Jaroslav Kulhavy (Specialized Racing), who is still recovering from a broken hand suffered earlier in the year. The race was expected to be the resumption of the ongoing battle between the two top men in the world - Schurter and Julien Absalon (BMC).
However, after Absalon suffered a rear flat on the first lap and had a slow change, he dropped to the high-40s, and it appeared his race was over. At the front, Schurter was on cruise control, with only Mathias Fluckiger (Stockli) and Maxime Marotte (BH-SR Suntour-KMC) able to keep pace with him; and Schurter appeared to be just biding his time before dropping first Fluckiger and then Marotte.
The real story was behind, where Absalon was making a remarkable charge through the field. By the halfway mark he was back in the top, with two laps to go into fourth and then into third with a lap to go, having joined Fluckiger. Schurter had clearly received word that Absalon was coming back, because he quickly dropped Marotte and began to race seriously.
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