It's over from Germany, and in clutch, dramatic, nail-biting fashion, Team Belgium has won! A huge first turn crash in the third moto mixed up the entire works, with Belgian star Clemente Desalle down in the pileup with an injured shoulder. With Desalle out, it looked like Belgium's chances were done, but Justin Barcia of Team USA was in that same pileup, and although he was able to get going, he was way, way back.
Up front, Germany's own Max Nagl grabbed the start and rode well, but eventually Italy's Antonio Cairoli started rolling toward the front and took the lead. Cairoli went 1-1 in his two motos for the second year in a row at this race. As for his team chances, Italy was in contention as David Philippaerts was also in the top ten.
But Belgium was actually not out of it. Ken de Dycker rode well, getting away from a pack that included Team USA's Ryan Dungey and moving forward. Late in the race, de Dycker passed Nagl to take over second--Belgium could drop Desalle's final-moto DNF and still win the thing. It would come down to how many spots Dungey and Barcia could make up late, and they put in strong charges. Dungey was in sixth at one point, had a battle with Gautier Paulin, went off the track, and ended up seventh. Barcia, from way back, got to 11th. They tried, but it was not enough to track down the Belgians, who enjoyed solid rides earlier from de Dycker, Desalle and Jeremy van Horebeek. They had saved their throw away score, and that meant Desalle's heart breaking final-moto crash didn't hurt them. Team USA had already dropped a bad one with Eli Tomac's 16th in moto one (bummer there, Eli was flying before going down while running third).
We'll have plenty more MXon coverage coming soon!
