In Commezzadura, the race came down to a duel between Vlad Dascalu and Filippo Colombo on the penultimate of seven laps. Dascalu accelerates on the first climb, the American Christopher Blevins and the Spaniard Jofre Cullell lose touch.

Although there is no truce between Colombo and Dascalu, there are repeated accelerations, but the duo are on the same level.
So it comes to a showdown on the last lap, on the last climb. Colombo rides in front and increases the pace, the sprint begins. "We sprinted the whole time," reports Colombo. It's all about being in first place on the last downhill to the finish.

Dascalu finally succeeds. The Romanian, who lives in Spain, has a three-second gap on Colombo and brings the lead down. It is his fourth victory in a row, his fifth overall.
"We were equally strong today, but he was better in the sprint. I'm getting closer race by race. I'm very happy with my performance and have no regrets. Sure, it was close, but he was simply stronger," explained Colombo.

Filippo Colombo is slowly getting back into top form and is only just behind first place. archive image ©Phil Gale

Best performance ahead of home race

Vital Albin and Joel Roth ride in the chasing group. It is a mistake by Joel Roth that allows Simon Andreassen (Den) and Vital Albin to open up a gap on the penultimate lap.
Together, Andreassen and Albin collect the Frenchman Berthet and then fight for fifth position.

Andreassen is stronger on the flat, Albin on the climbs, but neither can pull away. It came down to a sprint finish for fifth place. Andreassen wins in the photo finish, but Albin is more than satisfied with his best World Cup result.
"I actually set Lenzerheide as my high point, but of course it's good to see that I'm already doing well. I didn't start too fast today and that was better than at the European Championships, when I started fast," explains Albin.

Joel Roth finishes ninth for the third time this season and for the third time misses out on eighth place in the sprint against Great Britain's Cameron Orr. Apart from the "big mistake", however, he has nothing to criticize about his performance. "It was a good race, I haven't had a bad one yet this year. But it would be nice if I could finish eighth," he says with a grin.

Four times fourth

Ronja Eibl wins the women's U23 race in Val di Sole, Italy, for the third time in a row. The German also beat Britain's Evie Richards into second place for the third time by 42 seconds. Third place goes to Junior World Champion Laura Stigger from Austria. And Nicole Koller once again has to make do with an unpleasant position: She comes fourth for the fourth time in a row.

Nicole Koller rides the first two laps in seventh position, but then makes up places with her rhythm on the third lap and gets closer and closer to Laura Stigger. Halfway through the penultimate lap, the gap is only five seconds, but the Austrian turns up the pace and rides away from Koller again.
"I never quite got there. Laura has her strengths at the beginning and at the end, I had no chance. I'm happy with my performance and want to stay positive. Being able to deliver consistent performances is also something and I'm not far off the top," commented Koller, who can now move up to third place in the overall standings behind Eibl and Stigger.

Nicole Koller finishes fourth at a World Cup for the fourth time. Archive image WC Albstadt ©Balz Weber

In concrete terms, that's 1:59 minutes on Ronja Eibl, who held off Evie Richards in the final lap and extended her lead to 42 seconds. Stigger has a 1:19 minute difference at the finish.

The other Swiss women are far from the top ten: Tina Züger takes 27th place, Lara Krähemann finishes the race in 30th place.

Full results