Rapid fire catch up

Well it’s been a few of weeks since I posted for various reasons but here’s a little run down of stuff that’s gone down from the National Champs to round 6 of the World Cup .

The National Champs was quite a while ago now but even at the time it appeared to slip by a little un-noticed almost or maybe I just wasn’t concentrating or there was just so much on as every country seemed to have their National races that weekend it seemed. Gee and Rachel Atherton both took the wins so they’re still wearing matching race jerseys with the Union Flag on the sleeve now. Gee beat Santa Cruz Syndicate riders Josh Bryceland and Steve Peat for his win while Rachel beat a rapidly recovering Manon Carpenter. Also Nigel Page Chain Reaction/Nukeproof manager deserves a mention for winning the Veteran Category adding to his Bronze medal from the BMX World Champs.

Val D’Isere was the venue for the 6^th round of the World Cup and it looked Gnarly as, so gnarly in fact they changed a bit that involved dropping off the roof of a shed into a sketchy landing, also sketchy enough to put Tracey Hannah into hospital with some nasty breaks but it sounds like she’s getting better now though. There were a few issues with showing the event and replaying it, meaning I didn’t get to see it until several days later when I knew the result, which was a bit rubbish.
The women were up first, with Rachel Atherton just leading over Emmeline Ragot in the overall standings despite having missed the first race of the year. Manon Carpenter put together a good run for 5^th getting back on track after her collar bone injury earlier in the year, but the win went to a dominant Rachel Atherton nearly 1.5 seconds faster than Ragot with Pugin in 3rd and Miriam Nicole  4^th so a British and French top 5.

The mens race was a close one to call with young guns like Cam Cole, Brook ‘Bulldog’ MacDonald and Josh ‘Ratboy’ Bryceland putting in great qualifiers and the ever dominant Gwin always a threat and Minaar trying to keep his overall hopes alive. Worth a mention was the massive storm earlier in the weekend with a massive lightening strike while Sam Dale was on the hill, that can’t have been fun.

Gwin came down early after a crash in qualifying and spent a long time in the hot seat until Minaar kept his chances in the overall alive coming in just faster than Gwin despite a little mistake up top. Nick Beer had a massive over the bars nearly front flipping the bike on a jump but managed to finish the race, these guys are hardcore. Gee Atherton steals the top spot from Minaar putting down a faultless performance fastest all the way down however Bulldog managed to finally put a run together, after a being down at split one he upped his pace and came in 0.495 faster than Gee. Ratboy was next up and he smashed the top section to put in the fastest top split but seemed to slow further down the course and eventually slotted into 3^rd his best ever result. That left Cam Cole to come down but he didn’t have it in him to challenge the top spots. Bulldog claimed his first ever World Cup win and every rider in the finish arena wanted to congratulate him, it must have been one hell of an after party! Oh this also knocked Minaar and Gwin down far enough that Gwin, fairly unsurprisingly has enough of a lead into the final race to be unassailable and take the overall title for 2012.

Now rapidly approaching is the World Champs and the British team has been announced and it’s pretty hard core with 3 former World Champions and two junior World Champions from the Men and Women elite squads and the other men in the squad have either won or made the podium at World Cup rounds, it would also have had the current World Champ Danny Hart but he’s out with an injured shoulder. Britain still looking pretty solid for a win though.