British National MTB Cross Country Short-track

British National MTB Cross Country Short-track

The team at Grity HQ love all forms of cyclesport, and have been following the British MTB series for some years. We started to take the Grity pop-up shop to some of the events in 2022 after realising that we were already travelling to those races: to race, mechanic, pit and spectate. This season we stepped up to become the sponsor of the short-track races which open the weekend, with bespoke prizes for the winners. 

Short-track (XCC) has been an emerging spin off from full cross-country Olympic (XCO). The racing happens over a short segment of the full Olympic distance course, and lasts for approximately 20 minutes of flat-out, fast and furious racing.  Many laps are completed so the spectators get to see the riders many more times than the full XCO race.  They can see the race develop, witnessing every attack and incident, unlike XCO where laps can take 15-20 minutes each. This year XCC is being covered by GCN so hopefully will open it up to a wider audience.

There are some athletes who are becoming short track specialists, but others who only focus on the bigger prize of the XCO… however riders cannot become complacent of their short track finishing position because in the World Cup it will determine the gridding for the more prestigious XCO race.  Moreover, Short-track now has its own World Championship Rainbow Jersey competition.

 

Grity’s Neil reflects on his first experience of watching XCC:

“Short-track is still quite new. The first time I had first-hand experience of it was at the Lenzerheide World Cup in 2019, when it was scheduled for Friday evening.

It certainly kicked off the World Cup weekend in style as fans got to see the riders up close with tight head-to-head racing and sprint finishes. The noise was deafening as the fans roared their favourites on, and the atmosphere was electric!  The riders gave their all and literally collapsed on the line right in front of us.

We saw Pauline Ferrand Prevot and Matthieu Van Der Poel take wins and one of those classic race incidents when a rider celebrated a lap early mistakenly thinking that they had taken the win.”

MVDP taking the XCC win Lenzerheide 2019

As short track establishes itself in the UK scene, we’re really pleased to be able to support it and hope that it will bring even more action to the National MTB Cross Country Series.

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