Lenzerheide delivered when it mattered with yet another to-the-line World Cup that made us very glad that there’s another next weekend.
Oh boy… What a race. Lenzerheide delivered tight racing all weekend. Here’s who did what when it mattered.
Junior Women
The battle between Gracey Hemstreet and Phoebe Gale is heating up, and it would be the young Canadian taking the win and the points in finals in Switzerland. These two are comfortably ahead of the rest of the pack.
Jenna Hastings would round out the top three, some 5.6 seconds back, with Izabela Yankova in fourth with Aimi Kenyon making it a second Brit on the box.
Hemstreet would go seven seconds quicker than Gale’s qualifying time, so the track is hotting up.
Junior Men
Junior Men mirrored the Junior Women’s race with a young Brit and a young Canadian going head-to-head. Jackson Goldstone would shrug off going second by 0.009 yesterday and take the points when it mattered.
Lachlan Stevens-McNab would split the battling pair, with Jordan Williams having to settle for third today.
Goldstone’s winning time is eight seconds faster than Jordan Williams’ quali winner, and two faster than Pierron’s Elite quali winning time. So the track is definitely running faster than yesterday. For now…
Elite Women
Jess Blewitt would set a heater, building well into her run.
Nina Hoffman would be four seconds the good at the first split but suffer a flat at the second split. No luck for your Fort William winner today. She’d still hit all the big jumps with no wind in her back wheel.
Mille Johnset have a larger lead at the top of the hill than she did at the finish. 1.1 to the good once she crossed the line.
Rachel Atherton on track. Up at 1.7 at split one. She’s looking good. Almost four seconds up by split three. The legend takes the hotseat from her former team mate. 2.8 the good.
Vali Holl attacks straight out of the gate. 3.3 back on Atherton at split two after being over three up at split one. 0.1 back at split three. Three and a half up at split four… What a rollercoaster of a run. 4.4 up on Atherton.
Vero Widmann goes from 3.7 back at split one to 1.5 up at split two, to 3.7 back at split three. The Italian National Champ goes third.
Eleonora Farina goes from three back to three up by split two. A clean, flawless run from the Italian. 2.7 into the lead with three to go.
European Champ Monika Hrastnik on track. She’s trading splits with Farina but would start to lose time to the Italian on the lower slopes. Second place, 1.7 back.
Myriam Nicole on track. This will be on the podium or in the hedge. Biiiiiiiiiiiiig drift into the woods. Nicole is on the edge. 5.5 up at split two. 6.7 up at split three. She’s on the move big time. This is vintage Pompon. 8.3 out at split four. 8.4 across the line. That was a statement. Seven seconds quicker than Balanche’s qualifier.
Here we go. Balanche is on track. 1.7 down at split one but she’s pushing. A small wobble at the bottom of the steep section. 2.7 down. This is no the clinical Balanche we’re used to. Four back at split three. Still good for second though.
Myriam Nicole wins. That run would have been hard to beat.
Elite Men
Tuhoto-Ariki Pene is in the hot seat as we go into the live stream. Nine seconds faster than his qualifier and a second faster than Pierron’s quali winner. The Kiwi was strong in the lower two splits.
Plenty of riders coming down with flat tyres. Antoine Vidal and Jamie Edmondson some of the front runners losing wind from their wheels.
Gwin clearly buoyed by his team mate’s second place qualifier and heads into the hot seat. Good to see the American superstar working back towards full form.
Despite saying he wouldn’t, Bruni has started his finals run. It’s definitely a steady run from the defending World Cup champ. Only 1.9 back on Gwin. You have to think he’s eyeballing Les Gets World Champs.
Laurie Greenland is taking some funky lines but losing time all the way down to Gwin.
Gwin’s time is holding strong against Levesque, Meier-Smith, Frixtalon etc.
Danny Hart is on a heater but goes second by a whisker. He’s 0.1 ahead of Tuhoto-Ariki Pene.
Troy Brosnan looks quick but is losing time to Gwin.
Angel Suarez is almost a second up at slit two but goes off into the bushes at the end of the steep section but still only finishes a second back.
Finn Iles goes half a second up, extending to 0.9 at split three. Hot damn. Split four he goes 2.5 up. Iles’ scrub coming into the live feed was unreal. Nearly a bar on the dirt.
World Champ on track, can Greg Minnaar lay down a heater? Yes. Yes he can. Minnaar is up by 0.3. Another half second in the steep section… 0.4 into the red in the last split. Minnaar goes second. 0.3 back.
Finn Iles’ time is holding strong. For now…
Daprela is 1.4 back and isn’t quite pushing like we’re used to… Down to 2.3 into the red at split four. Finn must be starting to sweat now.
Matt Walker losing time all the way down the hill. 1.3 back in third. Iles and Minnaar have the top two spots locked in right now.
Andreas Kolb is half a second up at split two… Can he keep it going? This is going to go to the wire. The European Champ is on a heater. 0.2 down at split four… Kolb almost goes off the woodwork on the last drop. Third for the Austrian.
Luca Shaw hits the deck hard just before split two. He gets back on his bike and finishes his run.
Coulanges is 0.2 back at split two. This could be the run that unseats Iles. Iles was on a screamer between splits three and four as the Frenchman goes a second down. Three to go.
Vergier is 0.6 back at split two. Not impossible but Iles was strong on the lower slopes. Vergier hangs up in the key section. 7th for the Trek star.
Dak Norton is 0.3 into the green at split two. He’s a second up as he hits the road gap and slides out, game over. Only one man can stop Iles now.
The series leader on track. Can Amaury Pierron rob Iles of his maiden World Cup win? He’s up by 0.2 at split two. We’ve seen this before though… He’s 1.3 up after the key section. Vintage Pierron. Flawless from top to bottom.