Welcome to Lenzerheide! A picturesque town in Switzerland and home of World Cup #4.
If downhill was a novel then 2015 would be a book full of twists and sub plots, sure while the race winners have been pretty much the ‘established’ riders the rest of the podium positions/top 20 have been going to some different faces!
With Steve Peat overlooking the tracks design and construction you could be sure racers were in good hands. The total bill to build this tack was in the hundreds of thousands!Practice, qualifying and racing all took there toll. With Andrew Neethling, Brendan Fairclough, Josh Bryceland, Jack Moir (who did our #15secondtrackwalk from this round) and Andrew Crimmins all scored some pretty dramatic injuries of one type or another over the course of the week. In some cases, such as Andrews’ they could still race, in other cases like Jacks’ it was home for surgery/rehab.Brendan Fairclough still managed to lay down plenty of style! (and speed, he finished 15th in a stacked field).Sam Hill was back racing, even before his doctor said he should be, so he was using this race to get some ‘race feel’. The next round takes us to Mont Saint Anne where Sam has won countless times before. We feel he will have his eyes on this race to launch his season comeback.Stevie Smith was another rider who is/was on the comeback. He snuck into the top 10 with 9th place but you know he wants to get back on the podium. Again we feel Mont Saint Anne will be his springboard.Caption this haha! The girls watch on closely…The female podium, featuring a disappointed Emmeline Ragot in 5th who qualified fastest but crashed in her race run. Morgan Charre in 4th who hasn’t seen the podium for longer than she would have liked. Third place went to Tracey Hannah who is moving up the overall rankings with consistent results. A very relieved Mannon Carpenter in 2nd, this year has not been kind to her. Top step goes to Rachel Atherton for the third race in a row.You put your right leg out, you put your…. With Rachel Atherton’s form and confidence at the moment it is going to be a hard task stopping her running away this year. This marked her 23rd world cup victory,truly amazing.
By now you would have no doubt seen the results of the race, unfortunately for anyone trying to stream the race there were some technical issues during the men’s finals but at least the coverage is free and they rectified the problem before the end.
After his best ever result at the last race we know Connor Fearon was primed to go one better.In the end Connor went all or nothing and ended up going over the bars in the wooded section. He finished the race and as usual check out his full Inside Info to get his take on the weekend.Never rule Gee Atherton out, he finished 5th in the race and is always up there.Troy Brosnan gave us hints of his new kit before he unleashed it to the world. We have to say it polarised opinions! Not that Troy would mind he was busy going fast.Troy Put up some footage of him riding and it is well worth a watch.You can even see the crazy stump jump line he took, much tot he fans excitement!For the finals he chose a more traditional kit, here he lunges for the finish and 4th place.Dean Lucas well, well, well…!Dean has really made a push at stepping up his racing this year. We know how much he was training before the season started.As he came hurtling towards the finish line it was Ed Masters in the hot seat who had put together a great run (Ed would eventually finish 11th).As Dean crossed the line he checked the time, in his mind he knew he had put together a good run.And the timing board confirmed that! A few seconds ahead of Ed meant he would be inline for his best result to date. Little did we know just how good his run was.As riders were unable to beat his time it went from being a top 10 to a top 5 to a top 3 time! In the end 3rd place was his reward. Dean commented how much the track reminded him of riding back home and this result was testament to that.Loic Bruni was again the last rider down the hill and again finished second! The most over used phrase when captioning anything to do with Loic is that his maiden race win will come soon!What can be said about Greg Minnaar that hasn’t already?! After equaling the all time male wins record in Fort William Greg can now lay sole claim to it with a victory in Lenzerheide. A true legend in his own right.Winners are grinners!Just quietly we wouldn’t mind an all Australian podium! With the form in camp Australia at the moment that doesn’t seem un-achievable!Another podium shot why not!Drink it up! New podium boy Dean Lucas being ‘minted’.
That wraps up the World Cup action for a little while as next race is across the ocean in Canada and we can’t wait to see what that brings!
