Julien Absalon wins 2012 Olympics test event – Cycling News
Julien Absalon of France and Catharine Pendrel of Canada won the test race for 2012 Olympic Mountain Bike races for Men’s and Women’s events respectively. The event was a big success and was attended by over 4000 spectators, as the race was reduced to 140
kilometres instead of 250 kilometres.
Absalon stated that it was really important to have a good start and he managed to get it. Second of all, he was feeling strong and his legs were feeling good and lead him to a perfect race. He also appreciated the efforts by the organisers as he said, “I’m
also happy with the track, finally it’s good to ride, it is a fun track and it’s interesting. So I go back to France with a good feeling.” Absalon shared his thoughts with the media after the race.
Jaroslav Kulhavy of Czech Republic was amongst the favourites to win the race as he has already won 4 out of 5 World Cup contests in this season. Absalon’s current form was unknown as he missed the last two tournaments because he was training hard for the
fifth World Cup.
Julien’s form was pretty clear to everyone at the start of the race as he attacked right from the beginning. Kulhavy, Sauser and Karl Markt gave a good fight but were not able to hold on to it as they lost time to Absalon on every lap. Kulhavy was soon chased
by Jeremiah Bishop.
Absalon continued the attack and increased the lead by riding aggressively, he further added, “I am very pleased, I wanted to race very hard, because I have not had as much racing lately, so it was important to see how my form was, and it is good.”
Absalon won the race with a total time of 1:31:48 while Christoph Sauser was second followed by Karl Markt at the third place.
Sven Nys of Belgium, David Collins of Great Britain and Robin Seymour of Ireland did not finish the race while Rourke Croeser of South Africa was disqualified.
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