World championship title for Jeroen van Eck

Jeroen was crowned the world's best rider in the MTB eliminator discipline on Saturday, 13 July 2024.

Last weekend, the world championships in the sprint discipline took place in Aalen, Swabia. An event that was last held in Germany in 2010: The World Championships in the marathon discipline in Sankt Wendel, Saarland.

From the second final round onwards, Jeroen was able to open up a visible gap between the finalists S. Gegenheimer (DE), E. Lindh (SWE) and J. Klemencic (SLO).

As a result, he was able to outsprint all the other elite riders, including favourite and defending champion Titouan Perrin-Ganier from France, and since Saturday can call himself the new rainbow jersey holder for 2024/2025!

Eliminator discipline briefly explained

The eliminator discipline is also known as the sprint discipline in mountain biking and is the shortest and tightest race format of all existing disciplines. In so-called heats, four different riders duel at once, with only two advancing to the next round.

The whole procedure starts with the round of 16 and 32 participants, then the field is reduced to 16, 8 and finally 4 participants for the final round. In the final, the actual placings will then be determined, which will decide who is awarded the World Championship medals.

The track in Aalen 2024

In Aalen, the race course ran through the middle of the pedestrian zone and covered 680 metres.

Several artificial obstacles such as gravel waves, a tunnel over lorry trailers and steep wall bends were designed to transport the mountain bike action into the city. The course in Aalen was also characterised by a bumpy cobblestone surface. Finalist Lindh also had to contend with this. The cobblestones caused him to crash in the final. With several long straights, the course in Aalen also offered plenty of room for overtaking manoeuvres and therefore exciting duels right up to the last metre.

Images: naturallymitch & mitchcreates