UCI Gravel World Series – Hugo Drechou outsprints Petr Vakoč and Torbjørn Røed to win Alpine Gravel Challenge

USA’s Morgan Aguirre (Sufficient Biking) and French rider Hugo Drechou (Groove Gravel) gained the elite class of the Alpine Gravel Problem on Sunday in Champéry, Switzerland. 

The 94km route was one of many ultimate three Trek UCI Gravel World Sequence occasions of the 2024 season that qualify riders for the UCI Gravel World Championships in Belgium, October 5-6.

Aguirre completed second within the ladies’s total behind Swiss mountain bike specialist Sina Frei (Specialised Manufacturing facility Racing), who took the highest honours for the ladies’s 19-34 age class. On the professional ladies’s podium with Aguirre have been Annabel Fisher (Categorised Ridley Manufacturing facility Staff) and Axelle Dubau-Prévót (Groove Gravel).

On the boys’s aspect, Drechou, who gained the Oregon Path Gravel stage race and was fourth at The Rift Gravel, emerged from a three-rider dash for the victory. 

After somewhat greater than 3 hours and 31 minutes, he took a one-second benefit throughout the road forward of Petr Vakoč (Canyon Integray L27) and Torbjørn Andre Røed (Trek Driftless). Simply the week earlier than Vakoč and Røed went 1-2, respectively, at La Monsterrato in Italy.

The longest of the three routes, the 94km route headed throughout the Dents du Midi mountain vary of south-western Switzerland with 3,190 metres of elevation achieve. The primary 30km from Monthey was primarily on a paved floor, and included an extended 17.5km climb with a number of small sectors of grime and a 6.2% common gradient. 

Gravel took over as soon as passing by way of Champéry, getting a glimpse of the end line on a circuit close to the French border. On that loop, a 10km climb on an un-groomed floor was a key ingredient with a 5.7% common gradient, leaving a shorter third climb earlier than the ultimate 15km again on pavement for the downhill run into Champéry.

Aguirre stated she rode at her personal tempo and let a entrance group rush away at first, and used the three foremost climbs to claw her method again to the entrance of the ladies’s race, profitable in a time of 4:15:56. 

“After actually attempting to kick issues into gear this second half the season this one means quite a bit,” Aguirre stated on her Instagram account to have a good time her first UCI podium.

“I knew {that a} race with a lot of climbing would play to my strengths, however it’s all the time arduous to know the way precisely if the legs will come round after again to again weekends.”

She referred to as it “a four-hour TT with some actually quick descents” as soon as she moved solo to the entrance on the third climb. 

The week earlier than she completed one spot off the rostrum at Monsterrando Gravel in Italy, and two weeks earlier than that was seventh at Gravel Grit n’ Grind in Sweden.

Solely two different occasions within the UCI Gravel World Sequence stay for athletes to realize {qualifications} for the UCI Gravel World Championships: the Sea Otter Europe Girona on September 21 and the Graean Cymru in Wales on September 22. 

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