{"id":16382,"date":"2025-09-26T11:30:00","date_gmt":"2025-09-26T17:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/mtb-world-cup-vermette-wins-blunk-finishes-on-podium-in-lenzerheide\/"},"modified":"2026-03-30T21:57:15","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T03:57:15","slug":"mtb-world-cup-vermette-wins-blunk-finishes-on-podium-in-lenzerheide","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/mtb-world-cup-vermette-wins-blunk-finishes-on-podium-in-lenzerheide\/","title":{"rendered":"MTB World Cup: Vermette wins, Blunk finishes on podium in Lenzerheide"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Durango's
Durango's Asa Vermette celebrates his Red Bull Hardline Wales victory on July 27. (Courtesy Nathan Hughes)<\/span>NATHAN HUGHES<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

After three consecutive second-place finishes in the men\u2019s junior downhill World Cup, Durango\u2019s Asa Vermette finally broke through with his first World Cup win of the season in Lenzerheide, Switzerland, on Saturday. Savilia Blunk almost made it two riders with Durango connections on the top step of the podium in Lenzerheide.<\/p>\n

Blunk was in the lead of the women\u2019s elite cross-country Olympic (XCO) race on Sunday and was looking strong before an uncharacteristic crash while in the lead during the third lap of seven. Blunk lost the lead and 30 seconds to the leaders before she got up. She battled back and found herself in third for her second podium finish of the season.<\/p>\n

If Blunk could\u2019ve avoided the crash, she could\u2019ve been on for her first women\u2019s elite World Cup win. Alas, Vermette was the sole representative of Durango on the top step of a podium as he closes in on the men\u2019s junior World Cup overall title with two races left.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was stoked on it,\u201d Vermette said. \u201cThe weather was sick all weekend, the lift was fast and the truck was super sick and fun to ride. I was stoked to win qualifying and finals. It felt good to win the last junior race in Europe for me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Vermette finished the 1.84-kilometer in two minutes and 44.707 seconds. Jonty Williamson finished second in 2:49.491 and Oli Clark was third in 2:50.463.<\/p>\n

In classic Vermette style, he started the first split a little slower and didn\u2019t have the lead. Then he showed his speed and skill by having the fastest Split 2 by over 1.5 seconds. Vermette increased his gap to over four seconds in Split 3 and 4 for a dominant victory.<\/p>\n

Next up for Vermette is the World Cup in Lake Placid, New York, on Oct. 3-5. He is only 22 points behind Max Alran in the men\u2019s junior downhill standings with the Lake Placid and Mont-Sainte-Anne races left.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s super tight with the points, so it\u2019s cool making it good racing,\u201d Vermette said. \u201cWe\u2019ll see, I\u2019m not too worried about (the points) I\u2019m just trying to go race it one race at a time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Blunk finished her XCO race in 1:24:35, 25 seconds behind Alessandra Keller in first and nine seconds behind Jenny Rissveds in second.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have a little bit of mixed feelings,\u201d Blunk said. \u201cI\u2019m super proud of the race because of how I was able to really go for it before the crash. I\u2019ve been trying to go for it a lot, but some things have happened, whether it\u2019s mechanical or crash in front of me, or just chaos. I had a good start in front, I was really going for it and then I made a big mistake \u2026 I\u2019m really proud that I could collect myself after a big slam like that. It makes me really excited for the last two World Cups of the year.\u201d<\/p>\n

After Blunk\u2019s strong XCC performance where she finished seventh, she started on the front row in the XCO, which was a huge advantage. Blunk had a solid start and was in the top six early in the start loop.<\/p>\n

Once again, Rissveds blew up the front of the race with an early attack in the start loop. Blunk reacted well and was fourth as she and Evie Richards tried to bridge the gap to the front.<\/p>\n

Blunk showed her superb form by closing the gap to the front two at the start of the first lap; she was only a second back of the front.<\/p>\n

The former Fort Lewis College rider made the move on her Ford Decathlon teammate, Samara Maxwell, for second in the middle of the second lap. Blunk showed her strong pace and quickly caught up to Rissveds.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m in really good form right now,\u201d Blunk said. \u201cI trained a lot for worlds as my peak of the season. So now that form carries over to the end of the season, which is great.\u201d<\/p>\n

For the first time in a while, Blunk led an XCO. She powered through the multiline section, took a different line to Rissveds and made the pass toward the end of the second lap.<\/p>\n

Blunk led Rissveds and Keller in the third lap when disaster struck. She was going into a small downhill section, tried to adjust her glasses on her helmet and went down hard at high speed.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was a little bit too comfortable, took my hand off the bar to adjustment my glasses and flipped,\u201d Blunk said. \u201cMy hand was wet because we\u2019d been taking dump bottles and I slipped on the bar.\u201d<\/p>\n

Blunk said she was lucky to be okay after such a high-speed crash. She has some road rash on her back and some soreness, but other than that she\u2019s fine. Blunk took a second to check her head, gets balanced again and get back on her bike. During that time, she lost 30 seconds and got on her bike in third.<\/p>\n

After the crash, Blunk dropped down into the middle of the chase group in fifth in the fourth lap. She moved into fourth in the fifth lap and had some work to do to chase down Richards in third.<\/p>\n

The mountain bike gods gave Blunk a break after her tough crash. Blunk was elevated into third on the last lap as a fast-charging Richards had to pull over with a flat, elevating Blunk to third.<\/p>\n

Blunk wasn\u2019t even focused on third on the final lap. She wanted to get the race over with by pushing as hard as she could after a crazy race.<\/p>\n

On Friday, Blunk finished seventh in the women\u2019s elite XCC race in 20:33. Rissveds won the race in 20:07, followed by Richards in second in 20:09 and Ronja Bl\u00f6chlinger finished third in 20:28.<\/p>\n

Blunk didn\u2019t have the best start and was 17th and 14 seconds back after the first lap. In the first lap, there was a moment going into a downhill roots section where Blunk and two other riders got tangled up, causing Blunk to unclip and lose a lot of time.<\/p>\n

Over the next few laps, Blunk made some steady progress in positions and time to the leaders. She was ninth at the start of the fourth lap and was in a decent position as the lead group and chase group merged into one.<\/p>\n

However, the top four once again broke away, leaving Blunk at the front of the chase group in sixth and nine seconds back in the fifth lap.<\/p>\n

The top two of Rissveds and Richards pulled away from the rest of the field in the last few laps, leaving Blunk to fight in the chase group. Blunk finished a few seconds back of the chase group in seventh.<\/p>\n

Christopher Blevins is still working toward wrapping up the men\u2019s elite cross-country World Cup overall title. He finished 26th in the men\u2019s elite XCC race and 27th in the men\u2019s elite XCO race in Lenzerheide.<\/p>\n

The 27-year-old finished the men\u2019s elite XCC race in 22:11, 43 seconds behind his Specalized Factory Racing teammate, Victor Koretzky, in first.<\/p>\n

Blevins was a little bit ill, but was fit enough to race and pick up some valuable points in the XCC and overall standings at his favorite course of the year.<\/p>\n

On Sunday, Blevins finished the men\u2019s elite XCO race in 1:23:57, 3:34 behind Alan Hatherly in first.<\/p>\n

Blevins felt good early in the race and thought he might\u2019ve been on for a top-five finish, before a Lap 2 incident changed everything.<\/p>\n

\u201cI broke my chain, which was not on the plan,\u201d Blevins said. \u201cIt was a kind of an unavoidable moment in traffic where someone jumped right in front of me, after having a mechanic on their own, and I smacked my training like super hard on a walk when I had nowhere to go. So I\u2019m lucky it was a not catastrophic where I couldn\u2019t finish, but obviously a chain snap takes a while to fix and to get to the pit.\u201d<\/p>\n

Blevins was all the way back in the 70s after getting his chain fixed. He recognized that it\u2019s always harder to push while in traffic and he was satisfied with salvaging some decent points.<\/p>\n

The men\u2019s elite cross-country overall leader, Blevins has the chance to wrap up the overall title in Lake Placid, New York, in the next round. He thinks if he finishes inside the top 10 in short track, he\u2019ll have that title sealed. Blevins also thinks there\u2019s a chance he could seal the overall title (XCC +XCO) in Lake Placid with a good result.<\/p>\n

Not too far behind Blevins in the men\u2019s XCO race was Riley Amos, who finished in 34th in 1:24:36.<\/p>\n

Bailey Cioppa also competed in Lenzerheide and finished 26th in the women\u2019s U-23 XCC race and 27th in the women\u2019s U-23 XCO race.<\/p>\n

The UCI Mountain Bike World Cup resumes in Lake Placid on Oct. 3-5.<\/p>\n

bkelly@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Blevins still working on wrapping men\u2019s elite overall title with two rounds left<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16092,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[657,950,28,977,346],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-16382","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-cycling","tag-durango","tag-headlines","tag-mountain-biking","tag-sports"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16382","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16382"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16382\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20170,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16382\/revisions\/20170"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16092"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16382"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16382"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16382"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=16382"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}