World Cup Round 4, Leogang

Loic Bruni giving it some beans during practice

Race day has arrived here at Leogang, with the sun rising over another stunning day it would appear the race would be dry and un-interupted. As the track opened for practice riders began flowing down the track, looking so confident compared to the start of the week where through the roots the line choices were so timid and questionable. The riders were now on rails, so sure of the lines they had picked. Practice wrapped up and the track was closed for a moment as riders prepared for race runs. First up was juniors, we sat track side with the injured Aiden Varley and his mechanic, and dad Peter Varley, Aiden was disappointed to not being racing but we had a great chat about the junior racing. As the higher ranked riders started coming down the hill we noted there may be an upset on the cards with Amaury Pierron coming to sit on top and knock some of the faster riders off. Eventually with Amaury on top it was just Luca and Loris to come. As we watched the live feed on the board for the top sections of the track we noted that Loris had not come into view, over 20 secs off the pace we assumed he had crashed and the boards defaulted back to tracking Luca Shaw. We didn’t get a good view of the race from the screens, but as Luca appeared from the woods we noticed that Luca was only just in front of Loris. Luca crossed the line to claim 3rd place, we noticed Luca having a chat with the UCI, we thought he may of been held up from the assumed crash, however nothing came of the small chat and the results stood.

Next was the Elite Females, with quick times being set form the get go, the runs were mechanical free for the girls, a happy change from Ft. William I am sure, the only notable run that didn’t go to plan was Casey Brown who had a big off up track, she continued her run and finished but a long way off the pace. Jill Kitner set a super fast time which saw her in the hot seat for a little while, but as we saw the few girls roll down the hill her time tumbled. With just Manon on top of the hill Rachel Atherton was in the hot seat, could Manon continue her domination of this season’s world cup season? Time would tell, as Manon passed the first split time it was clear she was on a ripper run, however the split was still very close and a simple mistake would hand Rachel the win. Manon crossed the line and took the win by 2.69 Seconds, stamping her authority on this season, remaining the overall Elite Womens leader and also helping Madison Saracen to be the most successful team this world cup round.

Tegan Molloy hanging out in the hot seat, also taking second in the Junior women

This left just the Elite Men to come, and what a show it was going to be, the gap between all the qualifiers was only 14 seconds. The men started flowing down the track with times becoming very close from the start, by the time Sam Hill came down the hill we were seeing gaps of less that half a second between riders, this certainly was going to be a close one. We entered the ranks of the top 10 riders, the gaps increased and the riding stepped up. We watched as each rider came down the hill and topped the podium. Eventually it came to the top 5 qualifiers. We watched as Steve Smith made his way through the lower section, Steve appeared to be out of sync, finishing well off the pace, clearly disappointed with himself. It was then Andrew Neethlings turn, you could feel the excitement in the crowd, everyone was hoping Needles could pull a sweet result! At the first split he was up, not by much, but by todays standards it was quite a bit, though still less than a second, however by the second split he was down by quite a bit, with the whole crowd letting out a joined sigh. With three riders to go, who could take the top, Josh Bryceland came into view, on a fantastic time, and crossed the line to take the top spot, this left just Aaron Gwin and Loic Bruni to go. We watched as Aaron left the gate, a few moments later we noticed Aarons tire had come off in a flat, but he was still pushing, surely he couldn’t get a winning time with no tire, it turns out he couldn’t, crossing the line well back, but very impressive none the less. This just left Loic Bruni to come, he passed through the first split on top, and then through the second split, still on top, the pressure was mounting the crowd went silent! Loic appeared in the distance up the track, passing over parts of the course that had caught out riders earlier, one on of the final berms his wheel slid out, the celebration was explosive, Josh Bryceland takes the win, absolutely ecstatic with the result, he scored a free piggy back ride around the finish circle.