Fifth Place ends back-to-back World Cup weekends for Great Britain

After leaving Olten, Switzerland following the first of the World Cup series, the GB team travelled immediately to Genoa, Italy and were joined by an additional team member, Peter Molloy, for the second round of the series. 

A sprint focus event with an Individual Sprint followed by the Mixed Sprint Relay was held in an arena beautifully located on the waterfront in Genoa’s western end and both were varied and challenging sprint courses.  

Individual Sprint 

Both the men’s and the women’s courses began in a hilly forest area, which offered difficult route choice challenges on the slopes before moving into more classic urban sprint with the shorter legs on narrow streets.  

It was a win for Simona Aebersold, who made her way through the course with very few errors to dominate the Womens event by 28 seconds. Natalia Gemperle was second and Norway’s Ane Dyrkorn in third.  

In the Men’s, Kasper Fosser took the victory with Sweden’s Martin Regborn in second with Tomáš Křivda in third.  

The highest placed British athletes were Peter Hodkinson 27th and Megan Carter-Davies who returned from illness after missing the first round in 29th place, unfortunately there was a DNF for Ralph Street due to injury. 

Images below: Charlotte Ward, Jonathan Crickmore and Megan Carter-Davies. Credit: IOF / Kristina Lindgren

Results

Mixed Sprint Relay 

There was a nerve-wracking end to the competition in the Mixed Sprint Relay where Switzerland were the first to cross the line with Finland and Czechia second and third respectively.  

It was a strong start for the Great Britain team where Grace Molloy finished the leg in second place, closely fought with France, Norway and Sweden as Switzerland’s Natalia Gemperle took the lead.  

Switzerland held onto the lead, but Sweden and Finland closed the gap with Freddie Carcas moving down to 8th place, handing over to Nathan Lawson.  

On a challenging course, there was lots of room for error and lots of mistakes were made throughout the race. As Nathan handed over to Megan Carter- Davies for the final leg, the team were in 10th place, but the leg towards control 7 which was close to the sea, challenged several of the athletes with Megan Cater-Davies holding her nerve to move smoothly up the ranks to anchor the team home in 5th place. 

Team Manager Emil Wingstedt said “ It was a difficult day on Saturday in the Individual Sprint on a super- tricky course in a very unusual area. But it was much better in the relay today with strong performances from everyone. The first team showed their potential finishing in a close 5th place”. 

Images: Team GB together and on the podium post Relay Race! Credit: IOF / Kristina Lindgren