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!
Everyone was super excited for race day! Some people were over excited, Brendan Fairclough was one such soul!
Well what a race that was! The first World Cup of the season really was full of twists and turns, highs and lows! It all started with juniors and there is a fair chance you were huddled around a computer some where watching the live timing to get an idea of how everyone was going.
All in all if you’re reading this from Australia chances are the juniors would be the highlight of the day for you. Two Aussies claimed medals and overall we did quite well. Remy Morton has had a few gnarly crashes this weekend so to finish in one piece is a win enough we think! He came in 16th, next on the list was Max Warshawsky in 7th, a few places ahead of him at his first World Cup was Jackson Frew in 3rd! Taking the win on the day was a super stoked Andrew Crimmins, carrying good form into this season we knew it would only be a matter time before he was up there.
Top 5 and two Aussies!Andrew Crimmins through the trees, we are pretty excited to see how he goes for the rest of the year!
Moving onto the women’s race and after the junior racing everyone was excited to see who would claim the victory. In the end it would be Emmeline Ragot, the diminutive French girl who took the win in front of her home fans, Emmeline tends to do well on the technical tracks and today was no different. For our own Tracey Hannah she couldn’t match her first placed qualifier, unfortunately a crash near the bottom of the course saw her in 5th place, still a remarkable effort. A big mention to Tegan Molloy for grabbing 10th in her first World Cup in the big league.
10th for Tegan Molloy at her first World Cup after moving up from juniors.Emmeline Ragot took the win, the only French rider to do so this weekend.
Okay so the final race of the day, the mens’ and who would have thought it, the winner was the first rider down. If you don’t know by now Aaron Gwin won, after being disqualified in qualifying he was pushed to the bottom of the results and therefore off right at the start of the day. He put in a super human run to win by 4 seconds, visibly faster than any other rider, will he dominate the season like he did a few years ago? Or was it merely one race like last year where he won the opening round before the rest of the field caught up?
A pretty sizable time gap at the top there…A long time to wait until the sweet celebration!
To write off the finals just like that though wouldn’t be justified! Loic Bruni claimed an excellent second at his home race, Mike Jones claimed his first podium in third (that off season training with Sam Hill obviously paying dividends), Danny Hart let everyone know he’s back with a fourth place on his new Mondraker and Sam Dale kept his good form from last year going to snare his first podium in 5th. Brendan Fairclough showed us he’s been training during the off season to finish 6th, Josh Bryceland is still recovering from his broken foot so claiming 7th was quite the accomplishment. Troy Brosnan in 8th was the highest Australian but we know he will be looking for more next race.
Troy Brosnan was the highest placed Australian in 8th.
Dean Lucas finished 21st, he now sits within the top 20 overall giving him ‘protected’ status in Fort William. Mic Hannah was 35th and Gee Atherton rode with a broken wrist to come in 5oth. Tough luck for Cnnor Fearon after a blistering qualifier, a crash and ensuing bent pedal saw him out the back in 71st, racing is a tough mistress…
Aaron Gwin sits in second overall, his low qualifier means Loic Bruni takes the overall into the next race.
Now there’s a gap until race 2 in Scotland for Fort William, the World Cup rolls on….
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Tegan Molloy sending it, the crowd in France is a s loud and wild as ever.
Well 2015 might go down as the season where the new school takes over, a changing of the guard if you like. Now we don’t want to get ahead of ourselves but if you look at the qualifying results names like Bruni, Bryceland, Mulally, Lucas, Fearon and Brosnan replace names like Atherton, Gwin, Minnaar and Hill…… Just saying!
A few points to clean up Sam Hill is not racing whereas Greg Minnaar actually is (he is literally strapped to his bike) he is just aiming to claim a few points towards the overall. Aaron Gwin was disqualified from qualifying due to a crash which saw him leave the track but as he entered at a different point to where he left it the UCI disqualified him. Thanks to his protected status he should line up come finals. Danny Hart was out the back in the first world cup for his new team due to a flat tyre, expect that to change come Sunday.
Onto the qualifying results and starting off with the grommets, aka the juniors! These guys were showing their speed, young Laurie Greenland took position number 1 (Laurie podiumed at world championships last year so we know he has speed) just ahead of Andrew Crimmins in 2nd. Finals is going to be great to see a bunch of new names on on the podium. Looking slightly further down the time sheet and Jackson Frew in his first World Cup qualified 5th, exciting times ahead for the future of Australian downhill. Not too much further down the lost are Max ‘Warhawk’ Warshawsky and Remy Morton in 10th and 15th respectively.
Andrew Crimmins second in qualifying, a strong showing by team Kona at this race has them prepped for some big results.Junior Men, good to see a strong Aussie contingent, Andrew Crimmins in 2nd, Jackson Frew in 5th, Max Warshawsky in 10th and Remy Morton in 15th.
Next up onto the women and can we get a big shout out to Tracey Hannah for qualifying first, Tracey has been working hard late and we know she can win if everything comes together on race day. We will be excited to watch come finals that is for sure. Rachel Atherton was second, Mannon Carpenter, reigning world champion, crashed during practice and was a bit shaken up 5th in qualifying.
First during qualifying, a solid race here will put Tracey in a great position for the rest of the year.Top 5 women, topped by Tracey Hannah!
Men’s qualifying and no real surprise to see Loic Bruni on top with his form at the moment. Slightly more surprising to see Remi Thirion in second, we know he loves the steep, technical tracks and he has bagged a world cup victory before, is the second one on the cards?! It doesn’t look as Josh Bryceland has lost much speed after his big crash last year, coming home in 3rd. Neko Mullaly is going to be a real threat this year, fourth just shows this. Shut the front door! 5th place goes to our own Dean Lucas who is holding up the Devinci fort without Stevie Smith. A dig in practice didn’t stop him from his best qualifying result to date and hopefully his best finals result follows it up! 6th place and no doubt loving the fact he is on a 650b race bike is Connor Fearon (his mechanic Mathieu Dupelle may be the key to his qualifying result with a few choice valve caps being added to Connor’s bike!). Just behind Connor is Troy Brosan in 7th, Troy has told us he will be looking for more in his race run so stay tuned for a big result from the ‘Paddle Pop Lion’ if you’ve seen his hair! Brendan Fairclough is back at the pointy end with a 9th in qualifying, Mic Hannah was 21st, Greg Minnaar held on for 61st, Gee Atherton was fastest at split one but DNF (Did Not Finish) after a nasty encounter with the ground when his front wheel washed out. Gee is tough as nails so we expect him to line up for finals we will have to wait and see though. Final Aussie on the start list Matthew McCorkell was also a DNF.
Yeah boy! Dean Lucas in fifth for qualifying and fastest Australian qualifier, pretty excited for the main show!The men’s results, plenty of Aussies in the mix, let’s hope they all shuffle up a few positions for finals!
Tune back after finals…. this is going to be good!
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If you haven’t watched our 15 second track walk from Lourdes yet then head over to our Instagram or Facebook pages and do yourself a favour! The links are at the bottom of the article.
Okay we are pumped and we bet you guys are too! The world cups are back, these are the pinnacle of downhill racing seeing riders from all over the globe come together to take the title of fastest rider on the hill. Our first stop for 2015 is in Lourdes, a town in France that is steeped in history. A large component of the towns existence is related to religion, for this weekend we think you will find downhill is the chosen religion!
Connor Fearon with his fingers crossed, the track is pretty wild but we know he has it under control!
The track itself is steep, rocky, fast and features some big jumps! Basically what a ‘proper’ downhill race track should be like… The riders are loving it and because it is the first time a world cup has been run on it the playing field is essentially level. You can bet the crowd will be supporting one rider more than any other, that of course is Loic Bruni. The young rider is still eyeing off his first World Cup win and after winning Crankworx just a few weeks ago we know his form is red hot. Saying that Loic had a run in with a tree during practice but he was okay.
Gee Atherton laid down the fastest time during practice, a shade over 3 minutes.
Whilst we are talking about injury Josh Bryceland is back and still riding with his trademark steeze, Greg Minnaar is out after a crash at Crankworx damaged some tendons in his left hand. Big news of the day is Sam Hill sitting out day 1 of practice due to a shoulder injury, you feel he would do well on this steep, technical track, Sam will decide whether he races or not in tomorrow’s practice session.
Tegan Molloy, aka current Junior World Champion, is making the step up to the premier class, we all hope she has a great debut.
Continuing with the injury updates, Jack Moir is also absent with a shoulder injury, we know he was in good form but hopefully it isn’t too long before he is back on his new ride racing again. A few new bikes and parts have been spotted around the pits, it has been a busy time for mechanics who have been building up new bikes and cutting spikes (what seems to be the tyre of choice here in Lourdes). Talking about spikes, the weather has actually been dry fortunately as this track would be even more insane if it rained….
Dean Lucas scouting lines, his first outing on his new bike was Crankworx so we are keen to see what he can do this weekend. It seems like his kind of track.Jackson Frew is one of the Australian junior over racing in France. Andrew Crimmins comes into the even with the number 1 plate, junior racing is always just as tight as the big league.
Welcome to the 2015 world cup season! Check back with us soon as qualifying is next on the list!
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