Lets wrap up race day, which started at 8.45am for junior practice and didn’t finish until 7pm once medal presentations had concluded.
Morning practice was wet but according to, American Junior and last yeara��s silver medallist, Neko Mulally it “wasn’t as bad as the (other wet practice) day”. However, as racing started the rain continued to fall, Junior Women were the first riders on the course. In what would becomeA�a trend for the day, it seemed any rider that stayed upright and didn’t crash was in with a chance of winning! In the end only a quarter of the riders in the downhill didn’t crash in their race run. This might help explain some of the unfamiliar names high in the results, That said, racing is all about who can adapt to the situations the best and everyone had the same dismal conditions.
It was a simple choice for riders to switch to spikes to suit the conditions, some rode with a cut down spike. Along with various forms of mudguards the other modification that was popular with riders was running a longer visor on their helmets to help keep the water and mudA�off their goggles.
TheA�first riders in actionA�for Australia were the Junior Men and to be fair they struggled with the conditions. To add balance to this comment though, realistically Australia doesn’t have a track like this and conditions like those experienced are hard to come by as well. All the riders gave their best, for most it was the first time they had ridden these conditions, something that can’t be underestimated when it comes to racing.
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It was relatively unknown Austrian rider David Trummer who had the local European fans cheering as he held the hot seat for some time. It wasn’t until Troy Brosnan came down the course Trummer was removed from the hot seat. Troy came down with an incredible run that put him in the hot seat by over 12 seconds. His experience riding World Cup tracks and conditions, combined with his immense natural talent, shone through here. Still, there were two riders still to come down, both French. It was the French who had held a 4 day training camp at Champery 2 weeks earlier, the extra time on the track really showing through (France won the overall ranking for the Junior Men class, Australia was second). It was not to be for the French though with their riders finishing 3rd and 5th. A smiling Troy Brosnan made it two from two and capped off a remarkable season.
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Once the Juniors had finished Elite Women had their runs, in the end Emily Ragot stayed upright and took her second senior World Championships. As she said her run wasn’t a run where she attacked the course but rather one where she tried to stay smooth.
The main event of the day was the Elite Mens race, it was a strange race in the end. Just like the other classes that came before the results wereA�different to what many had been expecting. One of the first big names to take the hot seat was Brendan Fairclough, the track clearly suited his style, he would stay their for a little while. Shortly after down came Fabien Barel in his last World Championships’, while he didn’t grab the hot seat he put in a time that would see him finish 10th overall. Not a bad effort to retire and still be able to finish in the top 10!
The next rider that people were expecting big things from was Sam Hill, he came down the course but immediately didn’t have the style of old. Time of the bike clearly effecting his ability, there were foot dabs and stalls as he came down. Still, he finished 7th overall as the highest placed Australian, all of this having only got his arm out of a sling two weeks ago, a remarkable effort indeed. On course shortly after Hill was Damien Spagnolo, on board his Mondraker, a bike with super slack headangle, an attribute suitable for Champery! Damien came down and edged out Brendan by just over a second, team mate and proud friend Fabien Barel quickly embraced Damien in what would turn out to be the run of his life. After Spagnolo Sam Blenkinsop was on course and his run looked pretty good, a few errors as he admitted but compared to everyone else a very good run. Sam was sitting in 2nd until Danny hart hit the course, if you haven’t seen his run then you must watch a video of it. Flawless, crazy and perfect are all words that could be used to describe it. In true Danny form he whipped it out over the last jumps tot he crowds absolute delight! When he came in over 11.5 seconds faster than Damien everyone went wild. With only 5 riders to go you could see straight away who’s runs looked good, Greg Minnaar didn’t look on the pace and finished 8th, Gee Atherton crashed twice and finished ‘out the back’. This left one man on the hill, Aaron Gwin, if anyone could beat Danny’s run surely it would be the American. At the first time check he was almost a second down, you could see Danny was happy by this but still nervous about the rest of the track. It was only whenA�Aaron crashed Danny knew he had won it! It wasn’t a big crash (Aaron still finishedA�a highly respectable 12th) but at World Championships any crash will rule you out. The crowd went wild, partly for Danny and partly for the fact Aaron didn’t win! No disrespect to Aaron but it wouldn’t have been as interesting if he just came through and won like he had been all year. Saying that, Danny’s run was amazing and it’s doubtful whether Aaron would have beaten it anyway.
So like that, the rider from Great Britain, who hasn’t won a World Cup (something that hasn’t happened for a long time if ever!) became World Champion. A day of mixed results for the Australians but that is World Championships!
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Next year it is Leogang, Austria, hosting the World Championships, will Danny defend his title or will Troy step up to Elite and take the win? Can’t wait to find out!