World Cup Round 5, Mont St. Anne

Welcome to Mont St. Anne on the perfect race day, clear skies, the sun is shining, the excitement is building and the course dried off over night! We had an interesting qualification yesterday putting some new names at the top of the charts, not nessacerily new to the sport, just fresh as opposed to the likes of Gwin and Minaar. Would this mean another fresh winner for this world cup season? We will find out as the day progresses. As the track opened for practice riders flowed down slowly, making final inspections of lines they had chosen the day before, ensuring they were still useable, once decided there was a full scale attack on the course with a few high speed runs made and then it was time to relax and wait for the racing to begin. With the A practice drawing to an end many riders pushed hard trying their chosen lines and possibly to gain seconds with some larger lines, many were caught out on the last rock garden. There were plenty of crashes just prior to practice closing, most notable was Greg Minnaar taking a tumble and looking a little worse for wear, however he walked away and was sore but fine for racing.

Tracey Hannah drops in over the rocks

Rachel Atherton railing the corners through practice

As racing begun the junior men were first, with our own Ben Hill coming down first. as more riders came down the times fell, with Jack Iles putting in a super run to claim the hot seat and remain there until the very last rider Luca Shaw. As Luca appeared over the drop it was going to be close, as he crossed the line he claimed the top spot again and finished off the racing for the junior men.

With the men complete it was time for the elite women and they brought some speed from the get go, however as the riders began to come down there were some big gaps that formed as the quicker girls stepped it up and put a good gap into the previous racers. Rachel Atherton put a huge gap of over 12 seconds into the field which seemed almost un-beatable, and as Manon came down the first split indicated this may be true, however by the second split Manon had drawn the gap in to be negligible. Manon crossed the line on top and continued to stamp her domination in the Elite Women category.

This left only the Elite Men to come down the hill. And come down they did! there was a fast pace set from the start with times coming in much quicker than qualifying. The times fall consistently with no large gaps being formed, luckily there didn’t seem to be a repeat of mechanical issues through the field with only a couple of punctures. As we entered the top 20 the times dropped again and the speed stepped up, Sam Belenkinsop stepped things up with a great run which looked as if it may be hard to beat, but next thing Troy Brosnan was posting past splits and crossed the line on top of Sam. Danny Hart put in another fast paced run, and we feel that he is only a few races away from claiming a victory. Sam Hill came down with more pace than we have seen in a long time, looking like the Sam of old and crossing the line on top with a huge smile on his face. This left just Josh Bryceland to try and claim the win, could he go back to back or would we have another fresh face on the top of the podium. As Josh made his way down the track everyone was holding their breathe, as he made a few small mistakes it appeared as if Sam had it in the bag, the splits were still close though, and the race wasn’t run until Josh crossed the line. As Josh appeared over the drop at the finish line we could see it would be very close! The clock stopped and Sam Hill had taken the win today! Hats flew in the air and a very happy Nigel Page hugged his team rider.