Catharine Pendrel from Canada celebrates with her gold medal after wining the women's cross country event at the UCI Mountain Bike World Championships in Champery, September 3, 2011. REUTERS/Valentin FlauraudValentin Flauraud/Reuters
Canada's Catharine Pendrel won gold in the cross-country race Saturday at the mountain bike world championships.
The victory made the Kamloops, B.C., native the first Canadian to win an Olympic discipline mountain bike world title since 2002.
Pendrel, the top-ranked woman in cross country, finished the 31.8-kilometre race in one hour 46 minutes 14 seconds.
Defending world champion Maja Wloszczowska of Poland trailed 28 seconds behind to take silver, while Eva Lechner of Italy followed 1:36 behind for bronze.
Emily Batty of Brooklin, Ont., finished eighth, while Marie-Helene Premont of Chateau Richer, Que., was ninth.
Pendrel and Wloszczowska dropped the rest of the 60-rider field on the first lap and battled until the Polish rider suffered a rear-wheel puncture and had to go into the pits for a wheel change.
"It's been a couple of years where I've been sixth, sixth, fourth, but I wanted to put it all together on the big day, today," said Pendrel. "I was kind of nervous when I heard Maja was coming back up. At the beginning of the race we were riding pretty evenly, and I got a little gap on the downhill as that is when she flatted.
"I was hurting so much on that last climb ... I'm so happy it all stayed together."
In the men's cross-country, Jaroslav Kulhavy of the Czech Republic won gold in 1:44.30 on the six-lap, 4.8-km course.
Kulhavy was 47 seconds ahead of former world champion Nino Schurter of Switzerland, while Olympic champion Julien Absalon of France was third.