Fort William World Cup Downhill Finals
Ric McLaughlin Monday, Jun 8, 2009 12.00pm
The infamous
Whether it was walking down the ultra-steep hillside, hammering air-horns or drinking pints of beer out of didgery do’s everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves.
Despite the obvious absence of the racers Saturday night's party in the Fort went down well with all the usual watering-holes being full to bursting.
Sunday saw the finals of the men’s and women’s downhill and it was a nail biting, edge of the seat job all the way down to the last rider down.
First up was the female category and an in-form Sabrina
Jonnier headed up an all French top three, storming to a convincing victory.
Fellow country femmes Emiline Ragot took second spot, Celine Gros in third,
Florian Pugin in fourth and Myriam Nicole in fifth completing an all French podium.
The men’s race kicked off in fine style. The first rider to
stake a convincing claim on the hot seat was Fabien Barel. Back from a nasty
knee ligament injury and sporting a bionic knee brace the Subaru Mondraker rider
tamed the hill to claim a very popular spell in the hot seat.
The finish line is down there somewhere
The big guns then got under way and we saw the lead swapping nearly every run. Steve Peat couldn’t quite make it three wins in a row, coming in sixth spot in the rankings, but still first in the popularity stakes. His result leaves him still searching for that fabled 50th World Cup podium.
The final standings saw ‘Sick’ Mick Hannah in fifth, Gee Atherton in fourth, Sam Blenkinsop in an impressive third, Sam Hill in second and Greg Minnaar making it two years on the trot at the Fort with a storming win, a second and a half ahead of Hill.
Minnaar’s victory saw an impromptu finish area invasion from the omni-present and ever-noisy Minnaar fan club and the start of a very long night of revelry…
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flavrat66
Posted Tue 9 Jun, 8:12 pm BST Flag as inappropriate
Great racing but pity about the Eurosport coverage..only 3 cameras on the course, top section camera decides to go belly-up halfway through the show...no camera in the wooded section. And how difficult is it to link up the feeds from the top and bottom sections??.. apparently mission impossible for Eurosport! Producer ought to be shot!!(obviously not with a camera..too technical)..And who the hell was commentating?? It was absolutely, bloody awful! Every rider was described the same..again and AGAIN!...'yes, he's a very physical rider'...WTF!!..HELLO!! THIS IS MOUNTAIN BIKING WE'RE TALKING ABOUT ISN'T IT?? IT AIN'T BLOODY DARTS MATE!!...'he likes to sit back on the bike and let the front end flow'..and then 5 seconds later..'he likes to throw the bike around'..Jesus H..It would be laughable if it wasn't so chronically, utterly, embarrassing. It was even worse than Andora..ok, maybe not THAT bad!
Saying all that though, it's about time we get to see some coverage of the sport on the box..but lets hope that the BEEB picks it up in the nearby future..it can only get better.....'Sorry Mr Linnekar..no,no...and NO!'
p.s. GO PEATY!!! GO GEE!!! GO TRACEY!!!..(By the way Trace..if you wrecked your new Trek Sesh after the crash, I'll give you 50 quid for it and take a chance...;-)
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