MTB World Cup medalist Anton Sintsov told that it was a good motivation for him to return to the Russian Championship and defeat the best riders of the current generation.
Sintsov lives in Italy and competes for a professional mountain bike team. On Sunday, he regained the title of Russian champion in the Olympic cross-country discipline.
The Russian championship in this discipline ended on Sunday in Slyudorudnik (Chelyabinsk region).
— Is the quality of the track in Slyudorudnik on par with the European one?
“They told me it was true, that the track was technical, but I was still a little surprised: it is really technical and natural. Stone relief, even some roots, and in general it corresponds to the European level. But, in my opinion, they went a little too far with the end of the first climb; they could have done more, more interesting, more spectacular. The end of the first climb is not always left by the leaders. So that’s the only point, but in general the track is very interesting, there are many different lines for handling, for many reasons. It was cool to race on it.
Sintsov said he started from last position.
— I arrived with 60 UCI points, but they are not scored in Russia. I was put in last place. The main competitors rallied around me and set the pace while I was going out. But I made it.
Our championship has always been quite difficult and I wouldn’t say that I always won it easily. Previously, my competitors were Ivan Seledkov and Timofey Ivanov, but now the new generation, which in the year I was not there, had already declared itself, and they said that we had young people. Showing that changes do not come so quickly in life was a great motivation, “said Sintsov.
This season he was granted neutral status, which gave him the opportunity to start the World Cup.
— I have completed two or three races in neutral status. One of them is the World Cup. We were supposed to start the second stage of the World Cup marathon, but the whole team got sick and that weekend I decided to do a cross-country race in Italy. I always liked to start there, so I decided to find out what had changed in cross-country during this period. And I won! Strong competitors took part in it, the Italians, who were previously in the top 10 of the World Cup. It was nice to overtake them. In principle, I have never won these races, I have only won prizes, so I am pleasantly surprised. After that, I decided to go to the Russian Championship, ”Sintsov told .
Sintsov is 39 years old; he has already won the Russian championship in 2014, 2017 and 2022.
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I’m John White and I’m an experienced journalist working in the news industry. My specialty is covering sports news, which I’ve been doing for over 6 years now. During this time, I have worked as an author with Athletistic, a popular online news website focusing on sports topics.
