Switzerland’s Monique Halter comfortably won the under-19 Olympic cross country (XCO) race at the European Mountain Bike Championships, held this Saturday afternoon in Anadia, Portugal.
The pace of the race was set by the Swiss team. In the second of five laps, Monique Halter isolated herself with her compatriot Lea Huber. But the duo resisted little. On the next lap Monique Halter left the company of her team-mate and started riding solo.
From then on Monique Halter increased her advantage, lap by lap, to finish with a lead of 53 seconds over Lea Huber and 1m14s over Poland’s Natalia Grzegorzewska, who followed her on the podium.
The intense heat made the race even more demanding, contributing to very significant time differences between the athletes.
The European MTB Championship ends this Sunday with the last two XCO races. At 11am the under-23 women will compete, while the men’s race is scheduled for 2pm.
