Vine and Ovett of Australia finish first and second in esports World Championships
Vine and Ovett of Australia finish first and second in esports World Championships
Australia had a fantastic UCI Cycling esports World Championships with Jay Vine taking the rainbow jersey and his teammate Freddy Ovett taking silver. The defending champion Jason Osborne of Germany timed his race perfectly but wasn’t able to outsmart the Australians and finished third.
Tomoaki Takasugi (Japan) and Rick Ottema (Netherlands) broke away from the peloton on the first Knickerbocker lap and although their advantage was up to nine seconds at one point, Takasugi was reabsorbed just before the peloton started its second lap.
Up the New York KOM for the second time, a few riders pushed the pace, including Vine, but most of the peloton was able to hold on into the second Knickerbocker lap.
A group of six containing Spencer Seggebruch (USA), Martin Maertens of Germany, and Rainer Kepplinger (Austria) worked together to gain an advantage of up to 18 seconds on the second lap with Australia doing most of the chasing. As the breakaway crossed under the lap banner and approached the final New York KOM climb they had a 12-second headstart on the peloton.
Kepplinger deployed his Featherweight PowerUp with 1.3 km to go and was able to distance himself from his breakaway mates with the steepest sections of the climb ahead of him. As the Austrian rode away the break was caught by the chasing peloton led by Vine.
Before the final steep section of the climb with 250 meters to go, Osborne used an Aero PowerUp to pass Kepplinger but Vine and Ovett were still able to beat the former world champion to the line.
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