World champion Looser the pride of Namibia

A highly determined Vera Looser held off a fierce challenge from Rosa van Doorn of the Netherlands on her way to winning the deciding 2024 UCI Mountain Bike Marathon World Cup race and clinch the overall series title.

After almost five hours of racing, Sunday’s elite women’s race at Lake Placid in the US state of New York came down to a frantic sprint finish in the third and final UCI World Cup of the season, with the 30-year-old Namibian coming out on top.

Looser’s win saw her crowned the 2024 series champion, with two wins (at Nové Mesto in Czech Republic in May, as well as Sunday’s race) along with a third place in France in July when she was troubled by mechanical failures.

After a marathon 100 km of racing on a fast-paced course, Looser had enough left in the tank to edge the 23-year-old Van Doorn by mere centimetres, with both finishing at 4:58:29.

In the overall series, Looser leapfrogged Lejla Njemcevic of Bosnia (the 2023 series winner, who ended third on Sunday) to win by 50 points.

The women faced with three laps of the punchy 33.3 km course. After a fast and frantic start, a nine-strong lead group had formed by the end of the first lap.

As they crossed the start-finish line for a second time, the pack had been whittled down to five – the quintet composed of Njemcevic, Looser, Van Doorn, Janina Wüst (Switzerland) and Margot Moschetti (France).

The Frenchwoman was first to crack on the final lap, and the remaining four stayed together deep into the race. And then there were three, with Wüst dropped inside the final 10 km.

Eventually, Njemcevic was unable to hold Van Doorn and Looser’s wheels as the riders passed the 97 km checkpoint.

In the end, it was the Namibian who came out on top, throwing her handlebars just at the right time to narrowly beat Van Doorn. Njemcevic meanwhile finished third, 31 seconds down.

After the race, Looser said: “I quite like riding in a pack, especially in such a long race because there’s always something happening and you can dice yourself, you can hang on, you can attack or different things. I prefer that to just riding on my own.

“Today was a long race, but it was a tactical race. There’s a lot of punchy climbs and technical sections, but they’re never long or difficult enough to drop somebody, so I knew it would probably come to a smaller group at the end and it might come down to a sprint. I was totally fine with that because my sprint is quite good.

“At the end of the day, it’s who wants it the most – especially with such a tight final.

“It’s amazing to win this race overall. The UCI World Cup defines the best rider of the season over all courses, over different races, over different tactics. I think I pulled that off pretty well.”

On social media, Looser posted: “Only a few centimetres separated me with @rosa_vandoorn today after 5 hours of racing! What a cool tactical race! Thank you girls! Now, lets enjoy a little break!”

In news reports Looser revealed that she will not be in attendance at the Namibian national marathon mountain biking championship this coming weekend, which means that she will not be defending her national jersey or the privilege of wearing it at competitions over the following 12 months.



Men’s race

In the 100 km men’s race, Namibia’s Alex Miller finished in 13th place after 4 hours 04 minutes 11 seconds and afterwards admitted that he may have misjudged the amount of energy needed in the last lap.

“After managing a podium at the UCI MTB World Series marathon in Czech Republic earlier tjhis year, my goal was to do that again here in Lake Placid. Unfortunately I might have been a bit too motivated for the first two laps and paid for it properly in the 3rd final lap,” he explained on social media.

“Big thanks to Toyota Specialized (his pro team) for making it possible. Time to head home for the last few races of the season.”

Simon Schneller (27) of Germany won the men’s race, although Fabian Rabensteiner (34) of Italy won the overall series.