Between 3 and 13 August 2023, the UCI World Championships in Glasgow, Scotland, hosted some of the world’s best riders and top names across a multitude of cycling disciplines. Luke’s field of u23 Cross-Country Olympic Mountain Bikers was no different.
The Scottish course was long, highly technical, and incredibly wet (hardly surprising given the rainy weather), which made for an exciting, tense, and seriously competitive race. Luke was feeling good on the day and made the most of his 4th row start in 29th position on the grid.
He came through the first loop in 22nd, the fast-paced track resulting in constant jockeying for position and loads of overtaking, keeping the rankings in flux. The climbs were short and sharp, forcing riders to sprint. Unfortunately, a rider came down right in front of Luke as he was chasing down the top 10 group on the second last lap. Although he rode into the other rider, he managed to stay upright but lost precious seconds, and his rhythm! As a second chase group caught him, he was bumped from 13th to 20th, forcing Luke to dig even deeper. He chased hard on the final lap, putting in a huge sprint (reaching an impressive 1 405 watts) to jump the group and finish a strong 16th!
This is a huge improvement over last year where he was pulled off the track. Luke and his team were delighted with this result and attribute some of his success to his recent move to new coach, Barry Austin. He is learning to race smarter and will be able to implement his new training in the last few races of the year. Luke and team are looking forward to a big 2024!
In the meantime, Luke heads to Andorra to acclimatise to the altitude in time for the next World Cup race. His European calendar finishes up in Les Gets before he heads to Canada and the USA for the final two World Cup events. After that he will be enjoying some time at home and is hoping to ride the Amashova and the 94.7, and will also be joining fellow South African and pro-cyclist Tyler Lange for some fun at Wines2Whales.