Things are hotting up in Lenzerheide with some seriously tight times across the board which should mean some mad old racing tomorrow.
Wave goodbye to your massive winning margins and say hello to the tightest racing of the year as qualifying goes down in Lenzerheide.
Junior Women
Phoebe Gale would come out on top in Junior Women’s qualifying in Lenzerheide but not by her usual sizeable margin. In fact, the top four would be relatively tight, with a big gap back to fifth and beyond.
Gracey Hemstreet would settle for second, with Jenna Hastings in third. Izabela Yankova is in the mix in fourth.
Phoebe’s time would have put her seventh in Elite Women.
Junior Men
Despite being up at all four splits, Santa Cruz Syndicate’s Jackson Goldstone would have to settle for second by 0.009 as Jordan Williams once again pipped him when it mattered.
Henri Heifer was also doing well until split three but finished in the mix in third.
Junior men’s top ten is only separated by as many seconds.
Elite Women
Camille Balanche started her home race weekend off right with a healthy win in qualifying, a full 4.6 seconds up on Myriam Nicole. Monika Hrastnik would back up her European Champs win with a third, comfortably ahead of Eleonora Farina in fourth. Vero Widmann clearly back on from in fifth.
Vali was on track for a second place but went for a good look at the ground in the final sector.
And yes, Rachel Atherton is back. Despite having not slept, the 39 World Cup winner slotted neatly into seventh, just a whisker behind Vali Holl. She’s on the same second as Vero Widmann too, so a podium is a real possibility tomorrow.
Tahnee Seagrave would DNS.
Elite Men
We’ll start by saying holy eff and geoff… The top 50 men are separated by ten seconds. Blink at the wrong time or fart going over a jump and you’ll gain or lose ten places. Madness.
Laurie Greenland was in the mix before having problems in the last split and would make full use of his protected status.
Brook MacDonald has shrugged off his bad luck from the opening three rounds by slotting neatly into 11th just three seconds back. We’re looking forward to seeing the Bulldog bark tomorrow.
Amaury Pierron slides into pole position and will be the last man down the hill tomorrow. He’d be kept honest by Dak Norton who was a bike length behind him, some 0.277 back, with Vergier looking over the American’s shoulder.
The top ten have three seconds separating them. Anything could happen tomorrow.
Matt Walker would be the lone Brit in the top 10, made up mostly of French riders.
