Morgane Charre and Jesse Melamed stamped their authority on the trails of Pietra Ligure to triumph at the UCI Mountain Bike Enduro World Cup in Finale Outdoor Region. The pair took two stage wins apiece and were simply too consistently fast for their rivals on six fast, chunky and technical tracks above the azure waters of the Ligurian Sea in Italy.
After a huge 56km day, France’s Charre had a fairly comfortable win margin of nearly 14s over second-placed local hero Gloria Scarsi, with last year’s champion Isabeau Courdurier in third. Charre came out swinging and won the first two stages of the day – both around 10 minutes of riding and the longest in the race by some margin. As a result, she led all day despite a strong challenge from Scarsi, who took a later stage and was buoyed by a vocal and partisan local crowd to her best-ever result on the world stage.
In the men’s race it took Canadian Melamed a stage to get going but then he found his pace, took a stage win and held the lead for the rest of what was a massive day in the saddle with more than 2,000m of climbing and 3,100m of descending. Melamed’s biggest threat came from his countryman Rhys Verner who took the first stage of the day along with the fifth. That meant, at the close of play, he was only five seconds back after nearly 30 minutes against the clock. Frenchman Alex Rudeau won a stage and had two seconds places to finish less than a second behind Verner in third.
In the U21 race, it was a dominating win for Canadian Emmy Lan of the Forbidden Synthesis Team, France’s Lily Planquart was second and Lan’s compatriot Elly Hoskin was third. The U21 men was a win for Raphael Giambi, Scotland’s William Brodie was second and Giambi’s fellow Frenchman Alexis Icardo ended up third.
The team of the day were Canyon CLLCTV Factory Enduro Team but after three EDR rounds in 2023, Yeti/Fox Factory Racing lead the team standings.
