September 1, 2010 (Mont-Sainte-Anne, QC) – The team relay race started out under brutal heat and humidity, on a dry and dusty course. This made for a fast race and relatively few incidents in one of the course’s most popular technical sections, the rock garden called Beatrice, that was introduced to the race course in 2009.

Team Switzerland’s U23 rider Thomas Litscher got out to an early lead as he reached the rock garden had ceded it to Germany’s Manuel Fumic as both riders dropped into this section on the first lap. Fumic was closely followed by Italy’s Marco Fontana, with Litscher right behind. The Czech Republic’s Jaroslav Kulhavy was only a few seconds behind with a significant gap on Burry Stander of South Africa.

Canada’s Max Plaxton and the USA’s Todd Wells both got caught up behind, but easily passed Austria’s Christoph Soukup who had a bit of technical difficulty at the bottom of the rock garden. Plaxton and Wells left the rock garden in 9th and 10th respectively. Some of the riders looked hesitant at the top of the rock garden, with Slovakia’s Michal Lami choosing to run it. While Jose Sanchez Ruiz of Spain looked confident on the way in, he had a spectacular fall part way down.

Like many of the riders who crashed in the garden today, he got up quickly, adjusted his bike, and was on his way. Spain’s second leg rider, junior Antonio Santos Ridao, also wiped, but the team’s two elite riders – Anna Villar Argente and Jose Hermida (who turned in the fastest lap of the day) – had no difficulties at all riding through it.

Current World Champion Irina Kalentieva, the only woman to ride her team’s opening leg, brought up the rear of the first lap.

The Czech Republic took over the lead for part of the second lap, followed by Germany and Switzerland. Team USA moved up to 6th and Canada’s Francis Morin maintained 8th place, just ahead of the Netherlands.

During lap three, where most of the teams placed their elite woman rider, France’s Cedric Ravanel took the lead while Germany’s Sabine Spitz and the Czech Republic’s Katerina Nash battled for second just ahead of Switzerland’s Katrin Leumann. Canadian junior, Antoine Caron, was riding well and battled his way up to come through the rock garden in 5th position, to huge cheers, followed closely by US junior Seth Kemp.

Team South Africa was unable to maintain the impressive pace set by Burry Stander on the first lap, and their U23 rider Philip Buys had a chain problem at the top of the rock garden slowing them down even further.

Switzerland took the lead again on the final lap when it counted with anchor Ralph Naef who roared through the lap just ahead of German U23 rider Marcel Fleschhut. France’s Cecile Ravanel kept the team in third place early in the lap, but was knocked off the podium by a strong ride by Czech junior Tomas Paprstka. Canada and the US, again riding within seconds of each other, both had their Elite women riding the anchor leg, with Mical Dyck riding a strong lap against Katie Compton to take the team to 8th place on the day.

How deep is that Swiss team? Well Naef is the team’s sixth highest-ranked elite male racer in the UCI standings as none of the top-ranked Swiss riders raced the relay. The Czech Republic, on the other hand, definitely fielded its “A” team, including Kulhavy, just off his first World Cup win at Windham, New York, and Katerina Nash, the team’s top-ranked woman.

Full results and more photos here.