World Cup Round 1 PMB

I’ve been in the middle of another post for a while now, so thought I’d bang out a quick one about last weekend’s first round of the World Cup Downhill.

First up the ‘live’ coverage has moved from Freecaster to Red Bull T.V. people had high hopes for this move but many have been left disappointed as the first hour was a bit of a shambles and their apparently live coverage started after the girls had finished their runs. Ok I can see they’re trying to cut down the length of time spent on the early runs in the men’s contest, unfortunately wires were obviously crossed as the commentators, Rob Warner and Nigel Page were viewing the early men’s runs while the viewers saw the women’s descents. Then it switched back and forth but not quite together until the last couple of runs.  This made it pretty hard to keep attention on it despite the great racing. Let’s hope they sort it out for the next one, they have 2 and a half months to work on it!

Manon Carpenter took the Hot Seat by 10 seconds  after qualifying 10^th with some of the biggest contenders not racing like Rachel Atherton, Florrianne Pugin and Sabrina Jonnier it was looking good for Carpenter but let’s not take anything from her  it was a great run that held on till the last lass down. Tracey Hannah, returning to the World Cup circuit with style but putting less than a second over Manon.

In the men’s race Brendan Fairclough, returning from a lot of surgery on his knee over the off season, spent a good while in the Hot Seat eventually finishing in 19^th. Danny Hart the current World Champion slid out and over his bars on the top section ending up way down the field. Peaty finished 15^th and Gracia came out 10^th. Gee Atherton was the top Brit in 4^th having had a bad top section but pulling it back in the last two sections. The top 3 were Mic Hannah almost making it a double win for the Hannah Family, Aaron Gwinn .35 of a second faster than SicMic, leaving local Greg Minaar to come down, his fans went wild and broke down the fence as he came in half a second faster than Gwinn.

Oh and one special mention for Alex Bond newly of the Chain Reaction Cycles team; fastest through the speed trap at 63.642kph just under 4kph faster than the next closest all that with a broken collar bone!

I can’t wait for the rest of the season though it’s a long time till the next race in Val de Sole at the start of June. I just hope Red Bull sort their act out.