It was good to get back into the mountains but Mother Nature really wanted to test us this weekend…
Racing is back and more specifically the highest form of racing in our sport – World Cups. It was Lourdes, France that played host to round one just as it did last year. Being the first round meant that we were still adjusting to all the team reshuffles that have occurred during the off season.
There were some familiar faces getting around the pits.You feel those with a familiar team and bike set up might have had some advantage but in this sport nothing is a given.Remy Morton all smiles!
Overall the track itself was similar to what we have seen in the past but the weather this year really made the event interesting. Large amounts of rain made the track very slippery – during practice and qualifying it seemed as if there were more people crashing during their runs then those staying upright! By the finals, for the senior men anyway, most of the moisture had disappeared meaning their first run on a dry track was the run that counted!
Not quite chairlifts but at least you didn’t have to ride and with the cold any extra heat was a bonus!Steve Peat starting off what will be his final World Cup season…
The juniors is always an interesting race, especially at the start of the season, you never know who is going to come up on top. It was Finn Illes who was victorious, no doubt we will see more of Finn this year but there are plenty of other fast juniors, including Aussies who will be in the mix.
Tracey Hannah matched her plate with a 4th placed finish. Let’s see what she can do in Cairns!Manon Carpenter will be hoping to repeat her 2014 season where her form was red hot, this race she was still on the podium in 3rd place.Tahnee Seagrave is looking fast this year finishing second. As has been a trend over the past few years Rachel Atherton took the win, the first on her new bike/team.
The crowd in Lourdes was just crazy, even over the live feed you could hear them let a lone track side. This amped things up even more come finals.
Dean Lucas is one hard man… if you saw his crash you would no why! Here he looks up the hill at what could have been – in the top 15 before he crashed… roll on CairnsSam Hill with an unfamiliar plate on the front of his bike… he will come good as the season continues.The big jump into the final arena saw riders with one last challenge before the finish line.
Some random musings we noticed were; a few fast (relatively unknown) Frenchman putting in flyers to finish strongly, mainly Flo Payet in 12th and Amaury Pierron in 5th! Riders who took a chance either crashed or got rewarded with a strong finish.
9th for Connor Fearon will have him confident coming into his home World Cup.Josh Bryceland looked blistering across the top of the course, this translated into 6th place.Troy Brosnan came home in 4th – we can’t wait to see his kit for Cairns!Fastest qualifier and at his home World Cup – Loic Bruni was enjoying life!Fastest through the splits by some 2.5 seconds until it came undone… and with it his first world cup victory.New team and he still managed to show everyone how it was done… Aaron Gwin with a near perfect start to the season!Smiles and a thumbs up from Mr America.A great start to the season… roll on World Cup number 2.
The next round sees riders heading down under to Cairns and boy are we excited about this!
