WILMINGTON, N.Y. --- Considered the most difficult of the seven Leadville 100 MTB qualifying races, the Wilmington Whiteface 100K mountain bike race (WW100) is challenging enough under ideal conditions. But Sunday’s, June 5, weather at Whiteface Mountain and in Wilmington, N.Y. were far from that.

Just minutes before the start of the 7 a.m., 69-mile race, a light rain began to fall, but as soon as the starting gun fired off its round, signaling the mass start for the 467 riders, a steady down pour started and didn’t stop.

“I probably went out a little faster and harder than I wanted,” said the men’s overall winner Mathieu Belanger-Barrett (Quebec City, Quebec).  “I needed to make sure that I stayed warm, so I needed to ride kind of hard, because if you slow down you’re going to be cold and burn too much energy.”

Belanger-Barrett used the same stratagy from last year to become the WW100’s first-ever men’s repeat winner in a time of four hours, 12 minutes: 01 seconds.

“For much of the race, I worked with a group of three or four other cyclists and I was able to stay out in front,” he said. “Then just before the single track section, I pushed it a little bit and built a 15 second lead. It was there that I told myself that I just had to go for it.”

Belanger-Barrett broke away from both David Wiens (Gunnison, Colo.) and Kevin Bouchard-Hall (Westport, N.Y.) and held Wiens, a six-time Leadville 100K MTB champion and 2014 WW100 champion, off for a seven second win.

“I was pretty cautious on the decents, I got gapped on the first one, the back side of Jay, and I had to chase back on.  Then the same thing happened again on the Blueberry trails” remarked Wiens, the silver medalist.  “My stratagy was to ride as hard as I could and be as safe as I could.  I was surprised that I eventually caught up to Mathieau, but he may have been biding his time because he knew that he was going to be stronger at the end.”

Bouchard-Hall crossed the finish line only 26 second off the pace, in 4:15:21.

Beginning and ending at Whiteface Mountain Sunday’s race took the field through some of the region’s most challenging cycling terrain that included twisting jeep and gravel roads, back country trails and demanding hill climbs that measure more than 750 meters each.

From the bridge at the Olympic mountain, the out and back race took the cyclists to Route 86, the Fox Farm Road, Springfield Road, Hardy Road, Bartlett Road, Lacy Road and Limkiln Road before reaching Route 9N.

From 9N, the race’s most demanding and technical terrain and climbs awaited the field, as they peddle through Styles Brook Road and the Jay Mountain Road ahead of Carlott Road and Blood Hill Road.  From there, the field made its way to Roscoe Road, Bronson Lane, Blueberry Hill and out to Lord Road before returning to the Flume Trails and Whiteface Mountain.

“I’m a cycle-cross racer, so riding in the mud is very familiar to me. On a couple of down hills there were a couple of long ruts at high speed. This was going to be a challenging race regardless of the weather,” added Crystal Anthony (Berkley, Mass.), who won the women’s title. “We had some good groups out there, it was fun to be working with some different people at different parts, and I’m happy to becoming away with the win.”

Anthony cruised to her win in a time of 5:03.31, well ahead of the race’s second place finisher Regina Legge (Salem, N.H.), who crossed the finish line at the base of Whiteface in 5:40.45.

Elizabeth O’Donnell (Concord, Mass.) claimed bronze in 5:45.02.

Seventy-five of Sunday’s athletes are now making plans to race in the Aug. 13 LT100.  Twenty-five of the LT100 qualifying spots were awarded based on performance in each division for men and women, and the other 50 were distributed randomly from a pool of all racers, who finished under the maximum cutoff time, which was eight hours. 

A pair of local riders came away with victories from the t50K event. Patrick Carey (Keene, N.Y.) won the men’s race in 1:48.39, while Rose Van Dorn (Lake Placid, N.Y.) topped the women’s field. She completed the race in 2:11.02.

For more information about the Wilmington Whiteface 100K, https://results.chronotrack.com/event/results/event/event-12650.

Photos from the 2016 Wilmington Whiteface 100K can be found HERE. Photos courtesy ORDA/ Whiteface Lake Placid

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