Wei Tien Ho has nailed down that elusive first career World Cup triumph.
The Whistlerite rode to enduro gold last weekend during Leogang, Austria as no other U21 contestant could match his collective time of 26 minutes and 8.939 seconds. JT Fisher of Team USA gave it his best shot to earn silver (26:26.198), and bronze landed with Australia's Sascha Kim (26:27.611).
Ho also leaped into first overall in UCI enduro (EDR) rankings for his age group.
"Bit lost for words [right now]. Don’t think it’s fully sank in," wrote Ho on his Instagram account after the race. "Got my first EDR WC win yesterday. Had so many questions mentally coming into this season, doubted myself, but yesterday it felt like the pieces finally came together. And to come away with the overall lead going into the next round was the cherry on top. Thanks JT Fisher and Sascha Kim for a good battle, lovely to share the box with you boys.
"So many thank yous to everyone around me that’s believed in me and helped me get this. Special shoutout to my team Elliot Jamieson and Andreane Lanthier Nadeau for keeping me dialed, to Commencal Race Support for keeping the rig rolling and to Blueprint Athlete Development for making me put the work in. [Of course], thanks to ma and pops for everything as always, much love."
Elite results
Jesse Melamed had tougher luck in the men's elite event, but fought to sixth as medals went to Richie Rude of the United States (24:52.002), Frenchman Alex Rudeau (24:59.314) and Slawomir Lukasik of Poland (25:06.131) in that order. Kasper Woolley ended up fourth as top Canadian (25:25.864).
“Stages one through three that had some had a lot of root sections, when that got wet and greasy it was pretty hard to stay on-line and just riding those clean and having those couple first smooth and clean runs helped me to stay consistent and be up there in the top," said World Cup standings leader Rude in a press release.
“Just starting strong like that, when we got to the last three stages that are a bit more like bike park-y, it definitely helped my mentality. Once you have the jersey you want to keep it, and losing it the other weekend was kind of a bummer but that’s how it goes with us being so tight.”
Full results are available here.
