This leadership is much more important if we keep in mind that the leader until yesterday, Julien Absalon, has never abandoned that privileged position in many years; nobody had been able to take it away from him. This is the result of a very solid season of the Multivan-Merida rider. Hermida started the season winning the first World Cup in Pietermaritzburg and he has performed a great July and August period, winning the Spanish Championships, getting the silver medal at the Europeans and taking two second spots at the Canadian World Cup tour (Mt Ste Anne and Bromont).

Hermida feels “very happy. I would even say that I am moved. It is a ranking, you do not win a title or a medal, but it is the scale where the hard work done along the year is shown. My regularity of all these years and, above all, of this 2009, has been rewarded with this leadership. Moreover, it arrives in the best moment, just before the World Championships. My legs will not turn faster in Canberra because of this, but it is a great motivation”.

The standings are as follows:

1. Jose Antonio Hermida 1.757 puntos 2. Julien Absalon 1.755 puntos 3. Ralph Naef 1.520 puntos 4. Burry Stander 1.470 puntos 5. Christoph Sauser 1.241 puntos