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!
We just witnessed a history making day in more than one way among the testing conditions of the Scottish highlands. Rewinding A�a day to Saturday and 60kmph plus winds meant there was no practice or qualifying, the weather meaning the organisers would have to run it before the race Sunday morning.
Saturday saw a lot of ‘down time’ with not much to do except wait for Mother Nature to come to the party.Troy Brosnan found something to smile about!This is what the riders had to face, not to mention everyone else at the event. It would be the downfall (no pun intended) of many.A combined practice/qualifying/race day was draining for everyone. Riders had to be smart and learn their lines with minimal effort as they still had to qualify and race (if they made the cut).
So once qualifying was done there was little time for the riders (and mechanics) to be ready for racing, the crowd had started to pour in. As always there was a huge turn out of passionate fans, not fussed by the weather.
Fort William always draws a big crowd, whether that is at the venue or watching the live stream online.There was entertainment on hand for the crowd when there was breaks in the racing over the weekend.
Racing kicked off under better conditions and first on course were the junior riders, always a hotly contested category. As usual crashes were a feature in the final results. The win was taken by Martin Maes who is proving to be a force to be reckoned with in both enduro and downhill, he just edged out local and 2014 medal winner at the world championships’ Laurie Greenland (who had the crowd cheering him home) and Alex Trillo finished third. A tougher day for the Aussies, Andrew Crimmins the highest placed finisher in 9th, Remy Morton 11th, Max Warshawsky 14th and Jackson Frew 21st.
Junior Men Finals.
Next on course were the female riders, with both Tegan Molloy and Tracey Hannah representing for Australia hopes for a strong showing were high. In the end a solid result with Tegan in 11th and Tracey finishing 7th after a crash mid run. It was almost a British white wash on the podium with 4 out of the 5 places going to locals. 4X rider Katy Curd showed she can handle any sort of bike and took home 5th place, Manon Carpenter had a huge over the bars experience but still managed to grab 4th place, Emmeline Ragot continued her strong form after winning round 1 and took 3rd, second place went to the very pink Tahnee Seagrave in her best world cup result to date and the winner was Rachel Atherton who noticeably looked the fastest and smoothest of all the ladies.
Women Finals.The pink worked for Tahnee Seagrave who took her best result to date in 2nd place.There was no stopping Rachel Atherton who once again showed her excellent bike handling skills to take the win.Four out of five positions went to British riders.
Heading on to the men and it really felt like this race was wide open, a lack of practice and the track conditions were sure to ensure that anyone could win! We saw Stevie Smith back after a horrendous run of injuries, Sam Hill was absent and is rider who has won here before. After qualifying a few ‘lesser’ known riders such as Mike Jones showed they were up to speed and in the mix.
Men’s finals and the crowd was pumped and the sun shining.
George Brannigan took the hot seat early and enjoyed it for a while, Wyn Masters and Bernard Kerr had good results in 11th and 14th respectively. Mike Jones couldn’t back up his second place qualifier and finished just outside of the top 10 in 12th.
Wyn Masters best world cup result to date in 11th place.Riders were trying not to use too much energy at the top of the course, with the race won or lost in the middle woods.Mud on the riders kit was a sure way to tell they had an issue in their run.
Aaron Gwin came down on a stormer and went ahead by almost 7 seconds, everyone was questioning whether he had done enough to win his second race in a row this season. When Gee Atherton came down with a sloppy run but was only a few seconds off Gwin it looked as though his time may be beaten, Greg Minnaar came down and took the hot seat by over a second. Now with only a few riders left on course it looked as if it would require a Troy Brosnan like effort (he is the only rider to win his maiden world cup at this course). Speaking of Troy he had a bobble in the woods and finished 6th just off the podium. Last man on the hill Loic Bruni couldn’t put a run together to claim the victory finishing 7th, this left Greg Minnaar to take his 17th world cup victory, an all time record equal with team mate Steve Peat. Aaron Gwin finished second and takes the overall lead, Marcelo Gutierrez took his best ever result with third and is the first Columbian to step onto a world cup podium. Gee Atherton ended up finishing 4th with a sore wrist he has been nursing for a while now. Rounding out 5th was Sam Blenkinsop.
Men FinalsDropping in to the final area saw riders doing 60kmph plusTaylor Vernon, a local with high hopes on his shoulders.Unfortunately Josh Bryceland didn’t figure in the finals as he missed out on qualification.Fastest qualifier, Loic Bruni, finished seventh. You feel a win is going to come soon for the Frenchman.Second place for the American Dream, Aaron Gwin.A smiling Greg Minnaar took the victory, after damaging a tendon at Crankworx Rotorua it was a slow start to the season for Greg at round 1.Anyone that questioned Greg’s speed lately has been emphatically shown he still has it. 17 World Cup wins ensures his status as a great is assured.Who picked this result?
A rather different race weekend but run and won! Next weekend the circus heads to Austria for round 3.
Images: Isac Paddock follow on Instagram @_paddock
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Welcome to sunny Fort William! At least Tahnee Seagrave is bright as there wasn’t much else that was.
Welcome to Scotland, Fort William has been a fixture on the calendar for years now… in fact only Mont Sainte Anne has hosted more World Cups. If you have been paying attention to the lead up of this race you’ll have noticed that there have been some local races being held on the course . Unfortunately they have been plagued by bad weather and it seems as of this weekend is going to be the same… conditions were horrible at best. The track has been beat up by years of abuse and now the rain has come through and washed out what was left of the soil around the rocks and created some real bog holes in other places.
Troy Brosnan raced a local race here just a few weeks ago, is he keen to back up last years win here?! You bet he is!Brook MacDonald sending it in a rare moment of clarity where it wasn’t raining or fogged out!Gee Atherton had a solid crash during practice, he is okay. Josh Bryceland was another rider who said hello to a tree mid run, the rat will be back on it no worries!
The big question hovering over everyone’s head at the moment is whether Saturday practice will go ahead at all…. with the weather forecast questionable at best the gondola uplift may be shut down and practice/qualifying pushed back. Time will tell and this could have a big effect on the outcome of the race.
We don’t know how Joe Smith had the time/skill to go styling this jump we’d be struggling to even jump it in these conditions!Jacob Dickson laying it over towards the higher end of the track where it is still in the open.Josh ‘The Rat’ Bryceland had a dig during practice and winded himself but he’s tough and will be looking to grab a win here this weekend.
Check back soon to hopefully see practice/qualifying images and results but that is really up to Mother Nature.
Images: Isac Paddock follow on Instagram @_paddock
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Meribel was a new World Cup track for the riders and required quite some getting use to.
We check in with Connor Fearon for his last report from World Cups in 2014;
So the World Cup finals where in Meribel, France. I had never been there before nor had I heard much about the track although being a European track there was a high chance of it being a steep “proper” downhill track. Fortunately it was probably the best track of the season! Mainly natural rough terrain with deep dirt, lots of roots and minimal pedalling. I was sitting 25th overall in the points coming into the final race and the points where very close either side, so I could either move up or down the ranks depending how I went in the race. Moving down in the ranks wasn’t something I wanted to do and I’ve had a string of good results so I had high hopes. The first practice day proved the track to be pretty difficult. It had rained the night before and made the track pretty wet so some of the harder sections felt quite slow. Since the track was relatively fresh each run I did on the track there where new lines getting ridden down the whole track. In fact from the first day of practice to my race run I was essentially riding a different track from taking different lines the whole way down. One thing I struggled with on the track was just learning the course. There was a lot to think about and there’s not very much practice at a World Cup. Your qualifying run is probably your 6th or 7th run down the track for the weekend and if it’s a new track like Meribel you’ve never ridden before it makes it even harder.
Qualifying was important for Connor and his chances of moving up in the overall standings.
I had a bit of pressure on me for qualifying because the top 20 qualifiers get points towards the overall which I desperately needed. I had a solid run and qualified 17th. I was still learning the track so I was confident if I walked the track and had good runs in Saturday morning I could improve. Race day rolled around and I felt confident. As far as changes to the bike go I didn’t make many I was using the Maxxis Shorty tyres for the first time at a race, mainly due to half the track was really dry and dusty and half was still wet and muddy. The shorty is a good spike that worked well in both applications. My race run was good I felt like I was to conservative at the top so I let the brakes off a bit to the bottom and had a few close calls but held it together to finish 13th.
Finishing the year in 20th with tow less than ideal races is a great achievement.
Out of the last four races I’ve actually competed In I have had a 9th, 13th, 14th and the worst was a 17th. This is the form I wanted for the whole season but have had some bad luck with a crash at cairns and was sick for Mont St Anne. I finished 20th overall which is great considering my year. Next and finally on the calendar this year is the World Championships in Norway. The track is not my favourite but looking forward to the whole event and finally flying home for the year. Thanks to all that help me Kona Bikes, Fox Head, SRAM, Rockshox, Stans No Tubes, Maxxis, Truvativ, Yakima racks, Jarah Breese/Swift Performance, HT Pedals.
Next stop Hafjell for the World Champs.
Tune in with Downhill247 for the latest news and photos (and more).
In many parts of the event village and out on the course this was spot on…
Qualifying and everyone got a little quieter today, a little more serious and a little bit more focused! First up for the day was a practice session for everyone to see what the track was like after last nights rain, it should also be mentioned that riders were still deliberating on line choice so this practice was, for many, still about coming to terms with the track. The weather has really come into play, the course is running a lot slower and with so many rocks/roots there are riders slipping left right and centre.
During practice riders were cleaning their bikes after every run just so they could go up top and use them again.Some were also cleaning more than bikes…
With practice finished it was time to start qualifying and it was the junior riders that got the proceedings under way. It was a tough day in the office, many who are still coming to terms with racing at the highest level. Fast French rider Loris Vergier took the top spot, it was a mixed day for the Aussies with Aiden Varley the fastest in 4th immediately followed by Jackson Davis & then Max Warshawsky. Some of the other juniors had crashes which put them further down the list. It was much the same for the junior women, Australia’s highest place getter was Ellie Wale in 20th.
First round junior winner, Luca Shaw, was second in quallies today.Not all the riders had it so easy though, there were a LOT of crashes out on the course today.Look into my eyes!!! Riders were literally scared on many sections, after witnessing it first hand we don;t blame them!
Junior Men:
1. VERGIER Loris FRANCE 4:33.924
2. SHAW Luca UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 4:43.248 +9.324
3. VERNON Taylor GREAT BRITAIN 4:46.240 +12.316
4. HAMILTON Connor NEW-ZEALAND 5:05.033 +31.109
5. VARLEY Aiden AUSTRALIA 5:05.620 +31.696
6. DAVIS Jackson AUSTRALIA 5:06.154 +32.230
7. WARSHAWSKY Max AUSTRALIA 5:08.117 +34.193
Whoops!The crowd filled out as the day went on, getting louder and rowdier too!Moving on from the juniors it was the senior classes next on the track.
The senior classes kicked off and it was the women first on track, Rachel Atherton smashed the field by a whopping 18 seconds, it looks like everyone else has some catching up to do tomorrow! For Australia, Tracey Hannah, the local hope qualified a respectable 6th, we know she will want to do a lot better than that for the home crowd tomorrow.
Senior Mens was a totally different kettle of fish, times were a lot tighter, fittingly for ANZAC day it was a Kiwi on top of the time sheet, Sam Blenkinsop taking the first spot. It was the American Dream, Aaron Gwin in second, his second split time was blindingly fast, some 5 seconds faster than anyone else! Current world champ Greg Minnar was in 3rd, I think everyone was surprised with Ed Masters grabbing 4th and Same Dale 5th! For the Aussie contingent it was Connor Fearon in 9th, with what he described as an average run, crash included! Troy Brosnan was just outside the top 10 in 11th, the local boy, Mic Hannah looked good on course but had a crash which sent him tumbling down the placings, 34th in the end.
Senior Men:
1. BLENKINSOP Samuel 4:22.233
2. GWIN Aaron 4:22.961 +0.728
3. MINNAAR Greg 4:24.411 +2.178
4. MASTERS Edward 4:28.267 +6.034
5. DALE Sam 4:29.307 +7.074
Fastest Aussie qualifier Connor Fearon 9th.11th for Troy Brosnan, with all the home town support he will be looking to climb the rankings.Second fastest qualifier Aaron Gwin, his bike, just like most competitors gained over 10kgs in weight by the tie he got to the bottom.Brook MacDonald’s year hasn’t gone as he would have hoped, 28th in qualifying still leaves lots of room for improvement!Danielle Beecroft didn’t quite have the run of her dreams, tomorrow is the one that counts!You can never discount Greg, no matter what the track or the conditions, 3rd today and a threat tomorrow!A crash for Sam Hill pushed him down into unfamiliar territory on the time sheet.After a poor result in South Africa Gee Atherton is looking to wind things up a notch.Danny Hart is use to the wet but not the heat!Riders really had to crank to get any sort of speed in the thick mud.In a lot of cases it seemed as though riders almost let there guard down after navigating some of the really technical parts of the track only to get caught out somewhere simpler!
We can’t wait for finals tomorrow! You know where to get all the images tomorrow!
Images: Jason Stevens Photography, JB Photomedia & in house images.
Ahh what a day… Sunny, beautiful Cairns became wet, beautiful Cairns! Practice kicked off early in the morning with the Group B practice which comprised of junior, female and elite men’s riders that were ranked out of the top 100. Conditions were good and riders were enjoying the track, however, just before midday the skies opened up and down came the rain!
Walking up to the start line and about to start the day!A couple of Aussies watch on, Tracey Hannah, Will Rischbieth and Josh Button.Straight out of the gate and it is into a set of tight corners.Ben Power hits the corners, being a QLD local he knows the drill.If anyone knows the track inside and out it is this man, Rhys Atkinson, the track builder!Once the rain started coming down people were getting creative with ways to cover their electrical goods! Ty from Captyvate media remained patriotic with his covering! Check out his raw edit from today; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KnCxSSkozzYThere were other ways the action was being captured too!The wet rock garden didn’t seem to faze Sam Hill, everyone watched on in awe.Sam’s former team mate Troy Brosnan was out on his small bike from South Africa, the whole Specialized team were today!Troy’s team mate Aaron Gwin didn’t look exceptional today but then again no-one did!Brendan Fairclough boosted the jumps down the track something chronic! He did alright in the rocks too….Ben Hill, still no gloves! It didn’t seem to affect him none the less.Team Green To Gold going ejecto!Boost! Some riders were not afraid to go massive despite the conditions.
There was a timed practice session today but many riders didn’t ride in it, Connor Fearon did get the second fastest time behind Gee Atherton. We saw lots of media whose cameras succumbed to the conditions but qualifying tomorrow will tell the real story….
