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Joey Mantia leads in Zug
USA's Joey Mantia had to get creative to win Sunday's World Inline Cup in Zug, Switzerland. Stuck in mid-pack with the finish line fast approaching, the 22-year-old Florida native hopped onto a sidewalk to keep from getting hemmed in. The maneuver allowed him (with his Luigino-Answer teammates right behind him) to find some skating room. By the time he jumped back into the street — after a near collision with a woman pushing a stroller — he was in 15th place. "There were about 500 yards left to go, and then we started sprinting, and I was able to pass everyone and get to the front," he said. Mantia won the 40K in a time of 55 minutes and 51 seconds. Rollerblade-MPC's Luca Saggiorato was second. Mantia's new teammate Massimiliano Presti was third. Mantia said the race was fast from the start.
"It was the first race of the season, so everyone wanted to show what they could do," he said in a phone interview. "There were a bunch of new Colombians in the race, and they were doing lots of breaks." Remarkably, the new Luigino-Answer team placed five skaters in the top 11: Mantia, Presti, Claudio Nasseli (7th), Harry Vogel (9th), and Riccardo Bugari (11th). That put the team in first place in the new WIC season. But it's unlikely to stay there for long. Mantia said that he will be focusing again this year on the U.S. indoor and outdoor championships and the World Championships. As a result, he will not skate the full WIC season. However, he said that next year he would like to concentrate on the WIC. Mantia skated three World Cup races last year (without a team). He won two of them and misfired in the rainy Berlin Marathon. • Nicole Begg talks about the women's race
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