Ft.Bill 4x finals & DH quali
FT.WILLIAM, SCOTLAND
Another awesome day for Bryn and I. While I went on to take a victory last night and gain the lead of the series, bryn qualified 7th in the Downhill.
The crowd in Scotland has and will continue to be the biggest and best crowd on tour, hands down. They love their mountain bikers!! Downhill finals today!! About to go for a hike....
For vid and pics check out www.dirtmag.co.uk
I'm kinda lagging on photos , sorry about that.
The racing action last night was really entertaining. I was concentration on what I had to do, but a lot of unexpected twists. The ladies races were really good to watch on replay, there were passes in quite a few heats, and a few of the faster girls didn't make it to the finals. Fionn Griffiths of the UK I think won the crowd with her 4th to 1st move in the semi and flatties over the jump at the bottom. Buhly made some good moves on Jana as well to advance to the final.
In the women's final: Fionn, Buhly, Caroline Buchanan of AUS, and Me. I was tormented by what lane to pick, raced worlds here from lane 3 once, and thought lane 2 was actually the best lane, but I went lane 1 to give myself space. Out of the start, Caroline and I bumped a bit, she then bumped buhly, and I was outta there. Fionn pulled her outside move while 3 of us went to the inside, and she ended up third behind Caroline and I. This makes 15 World Cup wins for me, so pumped.
1.Jill 2.Caroline 3.Fionn 4.Buhly 5.Anneke
In the men's field, top qualifier Joost Wichman went out early. There were intense battles down the first straight, but in the end, we all deep down knew it was Jared's race to win. After his terrible luck at worlds in 07 here, he had unfinished business at the Ft. and handled it!! Saladini was looking really good as well, but in the final, Jared had the edge, and lane 2 , which sealed the deal. Final went
1.Jared, 2.Saladini, 3.Lukas MECHURA, 4.Jurg MEIJER 5.Prokop
Roger had some bad luck with mechanicals , guess a bent cassette, so it goes. Best news to report is that Prokop is almost back to his old self. Champ has had a little trouble with confidence and injury, but he was going so unbelievably fast in the small final. If he continues to ride like that, we will him in all the rest of the finals for sure.
Freecaster.tv should have the coverage, check it...
WOMEN
1 1 KINTNER Jill USA19811024 ---
2 3 BUCHANAN Caroline AUS19901024 ---
3 6 GRIFFITHS Fionn GBR19820827 NWT
4 4 BUHL Melissa USA19820125 ---
5 2 BEERTEN Anneke NED19820707 SCT
6 5 HORAKOVA Jana CZE19830904 ---
7 7 MOLCIK Anita AUT19801112 ---
8 9 SUEMASA Mio JPN19830401 ---
9 10 SEYDOUX Rachel SUI19820323 ---
MEN
Big Final
1 3 AUS19821216 GRAVES Jared YETI FOX SHOX FACTORY RACE TEAM 125
2 9 FRA19861010 SALADINI Romain TEAM SUNN 100
3 14 CZE19870217 MECHURA Lukas CHAIN REACTION CYCLES/INTENSE 75
4 13 NED19830330 MEIJER Jurg 60
Small Final
5 7 CZE19810401 PROKOP Michal 50
6 2 SUI19810504 RINDERKNECHT Roger GT BICYCLES 40
7 12 SUI19840802 SEYDOUX Pascal 30
8 8 ESP19810301 ALVAREZ DE LARA LUCAS Rafael