loose lips

Another great end to the season at the classic course at Schladming, Austria is due on 13 September. In the Women’s Downhill event we are seeing the domination by North Wales resident Rachel Atherton who has been flying so high and fast this season most of her opponents are only seeing the vapour trail.
After the two North American rounds of the “Nissan UCI Downhill World Cup powered by blah blah blah” at the famous Monte St Anne venue in Canada we saw Rachel Atherton (Animal Commençal) drop into the #1 slot to Sabrina Jonnier’s #2 (Team Maxxis) with Tracey Moseley (Kona) coming in #3. This was of course the week after her almost crippling accident at the British National Champs at Rhyd y Felin not far from Bala where she was air ambulanced out of the venue. The finish order was repeated a week later at Bromont, still in Canada, where the weather was at least as extreme as the course. Last weekend Round 5 moved to Canberra in Australia (World Championships 2009) where Tracy managed to leapfrog over them all to take the top podium place with Rachel #2 and french rider Jonnier left standing on podium #3.

With Rachel 50 points on top of Jonnier, she still has to fight hard to get the overall win for the series title, however she cannot be caught by third place Moseley, who if getting the maximum 250 points, will not improve on 3rd overall, however if Jonnier sets the fastest time in the seeding runs and wins the race, Rachel needs 203 points to win and must get 2nd place in both runs to get the series win. Since Rachel is unlikely to have an idea of how Jonnier does until she finishes it is going to be the hottest race of the year for undoubtedly the worlds best woman downhiller……

World Cup DH Womens Overall 1/9/2008
Rank Prev. Name / First Name Country Age Points
1 1 ATHERTON Rachel GBR 21 2173
2 2 JONNIER Sabrina FRA 27 2126
3 3 MOSELEY Tracy GBR 29 1767
4 4 RAGOT Emmeline FRA 22 1450

Over to the fella’s
Right who do we want? …. Geeee When do we want? … now… yup new lord of the turf is Gee Atherton (Animal Commençal) ok Peaty is the Don but is from ‘Yarksheer’ but yes in the end a Peaty season win would be the bomb. However this is how its been. After the world cup in Fort Bill with 1 spot grabbed Sam (yeah he deserved the win) Hill (Monster Iron Horse)… followed by Gee then Greg Minaar (Santa Cruz Syndicate) and Steve Peat (Santa Cruz Syndicate) the race moved across the pond. With two Canadian rounds after the rather odd World Championship in Italy where Sam Hill’s pact with the devil seems to have come unstuck at last on the final corner… so anyway Bish Bash Bosh - Mont St Anne #1 Minaar #2 Atherton #3 Hill #4 Peat and on to Bromont where the devils assistance came back #1 Hill #2 Minaar #3 Atherton #4 Peat.. each rider putting clear 2 second leads into each other was amazing …. so onto Australia … Canberra #1 Minaar but at #2 Nathan Rennie (Santa Cruz Syndicate) makes a come back from obscurity for his home race #3 is Gee with #4 everyones favourite frenchman Fabien Barel (Mondraker) Peaty finds his way down in #7. However the surprise is Minaar has a 5 second lead over second place… has he taken over Hill’s deal with the devil… mmmmm looks like it Hill limps home 9 seconds down in #11

So finals.. Schladming what’s the likely story?….. Hill is leading the world rankings at 1893 points if he was to bomb the 250 points available to the absolute winner means only Minaar and Gee are able to challenge Sam. Peaty at 1386 cannot get the overall win even if he takes the win. If Sam Hill hits the double win then with 2143 points no riders have enough points to beat him. If Gee wins the 2047 points, he has means Hill needs just 155 points to take the series win. If Gee was to DNF his seeding run, Hill would need to finish at least #2 in the main run to take the win… it’s all hot stuff for live coverage from the Final Round of the 2008 World Cup check out Freecaster.tv

World Cup DH Mens Overall 1/9/2008
Rank Prev. Name / First Name Country Age Points
1 1 HILL Samuel AUS 23 1893
2 2 ATHERTON Gee GBR 23 1797
3 3 MINNAAR Greg RSA 27 1764
4 4 PEAT Steve GBR 34 1386

And finally what a year.. right now GB leads the national ranking in downhill with #1 place in the womens thanks not only to Rachel but also Tracey, Ffion Griffiths, Helen Gaskell and in the mens too with significant work this season at world cups and other UCI events by not just by the Athertons and Peaty but also Brendan Fairclough, Matt Simmonds, Mark Beaumont, Josh Bryceland, Sam Dale, Danny Hart, Tom Braithwaite, and teams CRC Intense and Reverse Components and yeah .. those i ommitted…. it’s late…

National Team Rankings Womens DH 1/9/2008
Rank Prev. Country Code Points
1 2 GREAT BRITAIN GBR 4981
2 1 FRANCE FRA 4868
3 3 AUSTRIA AUT 1939

National Team Rankings Mens DH 1/9/2008
Rank Prev. Country Code Points
1 1 GREAT BRITAIN GBR 3894
2 2 AUSTRALIA AUS 3502
3 3 FRANCE FRA 2934