 Germany’s Helen Grobert was 4th at 1.06 minutes off the podium, ahead of Netherland’s Anne terpstra and Ukrainia’s Yana Belomoyna. Vivienne Meyer was the best Swiss in 7th place just ahead of Austria’s Lisa Mitterbauer, a member of the local ‚Bikepark.ch‘ team. A third French athlete, Fanny Bourdon was 9th and a second Swiss, Lorraine Truong 10th.
Bresset remain focused.
Even though she was soon leading alone the 27 km-long-race, Julie Bresset had to remain very focused during her solo ride on the slippery and difficult ‘Grand Paradis’ course which requested much energy and technical abilities from the athletes. Nevertheless, she suffered a small crash in the middle of her third lap and immediately lost nearly third seconds on Anne Last because of that incident. Fortunately for her, she managed to soon find back her pace and recover most of her advance on the British champion.
At the end of her ride, she could finally relax and lift her arms high in the air prior crossing the finish line under the encouragement of her numerous fans present around the finish line.
“It has been quite a stressful situation for me today, and I was even more nervous than during a normal World Cup race,” she explained afterwards. “As I have only raced once recently in a U23 competition in Slovakia, I had sort of finding back my marks in that race,” Bresset added. “Yet I knew I could not take it easy here because of the difficult track and the fact that Annie Last showed in recent weeks that she was in great shape too.”
A tense moment for Julie Bresset.
 “I was very concentrated yet I lost my balance riding over a tree rout and faced some tense moments,” Julie also said. “I was even panicking for a few seconds because of some technical problems with my gear change but I managed to fix everything fine after a short time. But it showed me that everything can happen until the last meter and it was crucial to remain very cautious and concentrated.”
“I’m very excited by this success and the fact that I could share it here with so many friends and family members too. It has been an amazing season for me with all my success on the Elite tour and these European and World titles. It’s funny in a way. Last August I broke my collarbone during a crash in training and my coach told me to be patient and that I’ll be able to bounce back stronger than before after my recovery. These words often went through my mind this season including today.”
Another medal for Annie Last.
Annie Last, already on the podium a year ago, fought incredibly hard to challenge her French rival throughout the race. Yet she just could not follow her pace and was absolutely exhausted after crossing the finish line a last time.
“I’ll need much time to recover from this intense effort, I gave all what I had in me but Julie was again out of reach for me today,” she said at the Press Conference. “I have been doing pretty well in the last Elite competitions I have entered so I felt confident prior the race. It’s of course great to get another silver medal in this event, it’s good for our team and our discipline,” added the Brit who also suffered a small crash during her race.
Pauline Prevot-Ferrand was very satisfied too by her third podium finish in a UCI World Championships – she was twice junior World Champion in recent years. In fact, it’s another highlight for her after her recent triumph in the U23 World Cup standings. “Before the race I knew that it would be quite difficult to aim for more than a 3rd place today, so I’m happy I could achieve this goal,” the pretty blond from Reims said.
“Julie and Annie have been very strong on the Elite tour this year so it was reasonable for me not to expect more from that competition. So far so good – my season has been excellent and this bronze medal is very nice too. I still have three more years to do my best on the U23 tour.”
With a total of three gold and one bronze medals, the French team is doing very well at Champéry – yet it’s certainly not over with three more days of racing to come. The French squad is also shooting for medals in Trials, 4 X , Elite XC and women Downhill.
PkL |
Another gold medal for Julie Bresset in the women U23 XC event. 
