World Championships 2011 - Danny Hart wins in Champery!

Men's Top 5

1. Danny Hart
2. Damien Spagnolo
3. Sam Blenkinsop
4. Brendan Fairclough
5. Mickael Pascal


Full results at bottom...

This year's World Championships downhill was all about who could handle the greasy mud on the super steep track at Champery, and all about Danny Hart! Marco Miliventi held the lead for quite a while as rider after rider struggled and crashed in the mud. Then Remi Thirion took the hotseat with a 1.9 second lead, look at the time! With rain pouring down, Brendan Fairclough put down an awesome run taking the lead by 6.63 seconds. Fabien Barel put in an incredible effort riding with 4 broken ribs to move into 2nd place in his last ever World Championships, he ended up 10th when it was over. And then came the rider that many were waiting for, Sam Hill. Still riding with a shoulder injury, Sam put in an amazing run looking so loose and picking singular lines that could have given him the win if he'd had the strength, but he couldn't manage better than 2.76 seconds back from Brendan and ended up in 7th place. Damien Spagnolo started his run fast, 0.8 up at the first split, and ended up smashing Fairclough's time by 1.436 seconds to put himself in the hotseat. Josh Bryceland looked liked he had an insane run going but he went down with a spectacular crash in the same place that Hill crashed in 2007, and unfortunately his bike tomahawked off the course and into oblivion, ending his chances of even finishing his run. Sam Blenkinsop made some mistakes at the top and was 2.65 back at the first split looking like it was all over, but he made up some incredible time at the bottom and even with a few more mistakes ended up only 1.29 seconds back to join Spagnolo on the hotseat in second place. After that rider after rider failed to put in a clean run as conditions seemed to get worse with the rain.

And then Danny Hart hit the course with just 4 riders left. An astounding 4.5 seconds up at the first split, he was pulling tear offs in places where other riders could barely even hang on. Up by an almost unbelievable 10 seconds up at the second split, he threw a huge whip over the jumps at the finish and he moved into the hotseat, 11.69 seconds up on Spagnolo. Could anyone beat him? Gee really struggled with his run and was 11 seconds back at the first split, and then crashed again and again to finish 52 seconds back in 52nd place. Greg Minnaar started off 9.14 back at the first split and was out of the running, leaving only Aaron Gwin in a position to take Hart out. Gwin was giving Hart a serious run for his money, less than a second back at the first split, but he crashed and got tangled up in the netting, leaving Danny Hart with the win by over 11 seconds!



Mens Final DH Results