Cecily Decker (Scuderia Pinarello) leads Karolina Migon (PAS Racing) throughout the lava rocks at 2024 The Rift Gravel(Picture credit score: Gravel Earth Collection )
Simen Nordahl Svendsen (PAS Racing) leads elite males on river crossing on his method to second title on the Rift Gravel(Picture credit score: Bjarni Baldurs / The Rift Gravel)
Riders crossing the expansive lava fields of Iceland(Picture credit score: Bjarni Baldurs / The Rift Gravel)
Geerike Schreurs (Specialised-SD Worx) leads river crossing in chase group for elite ladies(Picture credit score: Rán Bjargar / The Rift Gravel)
Piotr Havik competes within the chase group(Picture credit score: Kordian / The Rift Gravel)
Morgan Aguirre (Sufficient Biking) competes on the Krakatindur Climb(Picture credit score: Kordian / The Rift Gravel)
Chad Haga (PAS Racing) competes on the Krakatindur Climb(Picture credit score: Kordian / The Rift Gravel)
Simen Nordahl Svendsen (PAS Racing) and Cecily Decker (Scuderia Pinarello) emerged because the winners of The Rift Gravel, each having to contest two-riders sprints after the 200 kilometres of racing on the sun-drenched day of racing in Iceland.
The 200km route used a counter-clockwise loop round Hekla, with the vast majority of the two,165 metres of elevation acquire within the opening 70km. The Rift was the fourth of 5 ‘International’ occasions within the Gravel Earth Collection.
Svendsen would tackle Tiago Ferreira (Montanhas Magicas-BH) in a two-rider dash for the boys’s total and win The Rift for a second time. Iceland’s Ingvar Ómarsson (Trek Iceland) then replicated the sprint-line motion 6:15 later and journey forward of Hugo Drechou (Groove Gravel), the winner of Oregon Path Gravel, for third place.
When Svendsen received The Rift final yr, it was the primary professional gravel victory of his profession. He mentioned this yr with 60km to go, he may inform different riders within the entrance group have been affected by the extreme tempo, so he made a solo assault.
“It went good. I had an amazing day and raced laborious all day and managed to seize the win in the long run,” Svendsen mentioned in a Gravel Earth Collection interview on the finish of the race.
The early entrance group of males had contained a variety of key riders – Svendsen, Ferreira, Ómarsson, Drechou, Ole Bjørn Smisethjell (Molde CK/Reser Molde), Nathan Haas (Colnago-Castelli), Mattia de Marchi (Sufficient Biking) and a trio from Pas Racing of Tobias Mørch Kongstad, Thomas Bundgaard and Chad Haga. By the 80km marker many of the contenders had fallen away.
Drechou was the final rider to fall again from the lead group with beneath 40km to go and depart the dash to the Svendsen-Ferreira duo.
“I simply stayed with the group and pushed on the climbs. We rotated tremendous laborious. I went solo [after 60km], and after some time Tiago caught me. We have been driving collectively the final 45k and we have been each fairly drained. We simply needed to go for the dash,” Svendsen mentioned.
Decker was matched after the opening 30km within the ladies’s race by Karolina Migon (PAS Racing), the ladies’s winner of The Traka 360, and the US rider was in a position to out-kick Migon on the line.
The duo had distanced all challengers after the opening 30km and opened an 11-minute margin throughout the center of the race over Geerike Schreurs (Specialised-SD Worx) and Morgan Aguirre (Sufficient Biking), with just below one other minute to chaser Klara Sofie Skovgård Hansen (PAS Racing). Schreurs would journey simply forward of Aguirre in one other head-to-head dash to take third place.
“I simply tried to make it actually laborious from the beginning. Karolina and I bought away at about 20k, and she or he was actually sturdy. We have been evenly matched for the entire day,” she mentioned on the end.
Organisers supplied a separate begin for the ladies, taking off half-hour previous to the boys, and a coverage proscribing ladies from drafting off the boys ought to the fields overlap later. Decker, in her first worldwide gravel race, mentioned the principles made the distinction.
“I went into the race with an aggressive plan; to make it laborious and drive the tempo early. The no-draft rule gave me the liberty and confidence to assault and depart the others, understanding they’d not be pulled again to me by the boys,” she famous on her Instagram account.
“We additionally squashed a typical false impression that the ladies’s race will probably be considerably slower if we’re unable to draft off of males. We smashed the course file by over half-hour within the first installment of this race with these new guidelines in place.”
Migon jumped Sarah Sturm within the ladies’s Gravel Earth Collection total standings to take the ladies’s lead with 1920 factors. Svendsen and Drechou moved into first place, tied with 1808 factors every, within the males’s division.
A complete of 5 International occasions at this yr’s Gravel Earth Collection provide most factors for riders, the following cease in late September at Falling Leaves Lahti in Finland. The ultimate collection occasion will probably be held October 13 at Gravel Earth Remaining at Ranxo Gravel in Spain.
