Hot damn, what a race… Lourdes provided the goods and put on quite a show for the opening round of the UCI Downhill World Cup.
The rain might have stayed away making the racing super tight as the UCI Downhill World Cup opened its account in 2022. Lourdes once again came up trumps.
Here’s who did what when it mattered in their finals run.
Junior Women
Phoebe Gale couldn’t make her quali run stick and would have to relinquish the win to Gracey Hemstreet who ran away with finals by over six seconds. Interestingly, Juniors get no qualifying points, so Hemstreet made it count when it mattered and will go to Fort William with the leader’s jersey.
Isabela Yankova rounded out the top three.
Junior Men
It’s a clean sweep for Santa Cruz Syndicate’s youngest rider Jackson Goldstone. A qualifying and finals win is exactly how the young Canadian wanted to start his year. Remy Meier-Smith split last year’s rivals, 2.8 back on Goldstone, with Jordan Williams just over 0.6 back on the Aussie.
Elite Women
Oh boy… It’s tight at the top. Nina Hoffman kicked things off despite a slam yesterday and set a marker for the rest to beat. She went huge of the pre-whoops step down. Seventh is solid considering.
It would be Camille Balanche that would look fast, smooth and precise and lay down a heater. She’d look consistent the whole way down, with neither Nicole, Seagrave, Holl or Cabirou would be able to capitalise on their green upper splits. The Swiss Dorval AM rider would win the race on the lower slopes. The top four were less than 1.7 seconds apart.
Elite Men
Kade Edwards mirrored Balanche’s run by holding his pace for the full run rather than fading in the lower sectors and saw off spirited attack from numerous other riders. Edwards made the Mercedes-Benz Key Section between the top step down to the big rock drop his own. Few riders got close.
Dakotah Norton would be the first rider to disabuse Kade of the notion of more time in the hot seat, taking almost a second out of the Trek rider in the Key Section.
2020 World Cup Champ and current National Champ Matt Walker would, as Norton was warming into the hot seat, do a real number on split two, where everyone else was so close together. Walker would be over a second up here and ride it to almost an 0.8 second lead with 11 to go.
Greenland would then light up the splits green the whole way down. It was another classic Greeland run. Laurie would do to Walker what Walker did to Norton. The spice levels rose fast.
Luca Shaw would then pull an absolute heater of a run and built his lead the whole way down the track. The Canyon Sender working very well for the softly-spoken Yank. He’d take a second and a half out of Greenland.
Vergier looked to be on a screamer of a run until he binned it coming into the step down into the woods.
Benoit Coulange would fly the flag, literally and metaphorically, by building into a pinned run to go just shy of a second up on Shaw. Full commitment. Full head bang off the rock drop. He’d be the first rider to go under 2 minutes fifty.
Daprela would, once again, be on a wild ride and binned it while fully in touch approaching the rock drop, clipping a tree and down he went. He’d thankfully ride himself off the hill.
Amaury Pierron would do his usual and disregard a leg injury sustained yesterday. He’d go fastest by a second and a half with two riders on the hill. Madness. Only the Specialized crew can spoil his day.
Finn Iles would stay on his bike, exchanging splits with Pierron. Nothing can separate them. Second place. Only Bruni can rain on Pierron’s parade.
SuperBruni would go from 0.6 down at split one, to 0.7 up at split two… Bruni is flying… Then back 0.26 at split three… 0.6 down at split four. The crowd are going wild. Bruni goes third.
Pierron takes it. My heart is doing 220bpm easily. Do we have to wait six weeks for the next one please?
