13 years after it hosted the World Championships, this Rotorua track is still a challenging technical beast. Deep techy jungle bookended by fast, wide open grass sections means it tests all aspects of a rider's abilities.
In the men's race, just 0.5 seconds separated the top three. Brook MacDonald was the hugely popular winner but he snatched it by less than a tenth from Finn Iles, who was testing a 29/27.5 set up. Third place fell to George Brannigan, it's great to see him back at the business end of things. Tracey Hannah ran out the victor in the women's race with a huge margin of 5 seconds over Kate Weatherly. Tahnee Seagrave had a tussle with a tree in the larches but still managed to finish third.
The start hut had quite the view considering how thick the jungle can be below.
Eliot Jackson taking off over the hump.
Bas Van Steenbergen's name has shown up on more start lists than most here in Rotorua. He would go on to race pump track immediately after he put his downhill bike away for the night.
Emilie Siegenthaler just missed the podium but is always one to watch out for.
Mitch Ropelato finished just outside the top 10 against the usual UCI start list.
Kate Weatherly dropping into second place.
The Bulldog charging... and he had to. The men's race was super tight in times.
Casey Brown doubling down for the step up.
Warp speed over the step-up.
Kona's newest recruit, Jakson Frew, boosting himself into a solid top 10 finish.
Tracey Hannah put in a significant gap in time over the rest of the woman's field.
Vaea Verbeeck flying her flag from across the pond. She's been having great success so far in the points race for the Queen of Crankworx and racked up some more today.
Tracey Hannah felt right at home on this track.
George Brannigan kept the hot seat warm for quite a while before Finn Iles decided he wanted a turn. Third place for the GT rider.
Tahnee Seagrave was taking some big lines through the larches. She would finish third in finals after being caught out by a tree.
Laurie Greenland rounded up the top 5 in the men's field.
Alex Fayolle navigating the moon dust.
The reigning King of Crankworx and local boy, Sam Blenkinsop, would need more than a couple mid-air pedal strokes to claw back at the clock.
Bernard Kerr just missing out on the podium in fourth place.
Kaos Seagrave is another rider struggling with an injury this week.
Loic Bruni's split times looked promising until a front flat put him out of the race.
Brendan Fairclough was a DNS for the race after an injury sidelined him in practice.
Iles into the finish arena and comfortably on the hot seat with only a few riders left.
Finn Iles was the first to knock George Brannigan off the hot seat after a blazing hot lap down the track.
Connor Fearon was looking for a positive result. He held a descent time crossing the line and finished the day in seventh.
Brook Macdonald is definitely a favourite personality around these parts and the crowd let him know it. He managed to just edge out the young Finn by a mere hundredth of a second.
Dean Lucas navigating the dusty rut in the open.
Impressive victory from Tracey today. Let's see if she can bring that confidence into the first round of the traveling circus.
Blenki enjoying every bit of it.
Finn pleasing the young fans, taking the time to snap some pics and sign whatever they brought.
Big smiles from the Bulldog.
Pro Downhill Podium.
Must Read This Week
36 Comments
interactives.stuff.co.nz/2018/03/a-level-playing-field
Back to reality, it is the victim/ opressor relation that fks it all up. Come the fk on, Look at Kate, does she look like an evil person? Hell No! I really think it is an obligatory unfairness to Kate to put the whole issue on he shoulders. I give her full benefit of doubt, and genuinely feel sorry for her. She looks like a genuinely good person... meanwhile most online discussions are polarized and a person looking at it from the side may see it as a raging fight of trans-samdbaggers vs tramsphobes which is very rarely the case.
I will give an example that shows how stupid the whole thing is: If Emily Batty (yes she of all) makes a short instagram post where she writes something in the lines of: "we are worried and urge UCI to take a stance in transgender case, for the good of female racing and the transgender people themselves" - hell will break loose, she will be called names, she'll be called an agent of patriarchy, ONLY because she grew up to be pretty and she is successful... and she drives a Porsche. All her assets, all her hard work, all good things that she worked for or was lucky to get, will be turned against her. As it already happened on an occasion or two. And on top of that she will get a bunch of idiots from the transphobic side, making her into a symbol of fight against "weirdos". Just like Far right folks use J Peterson as their poster boy, even though he openly condemns them.
The ultimate problem here is, that case is unresolved, and Kate, who is one of all of us Mountain bikers, people who get extremely happy because they ride a bike fast in the woods, she just got on podium (how rad is that?!) and this joy will be broken to some degree by folks calling her a sandbagger. That she didn't deserve it. And this will happen every single time she steps on a podium.
You know right now all women's sports organisations are sitting around tables saying "Oh f*ck, now what do we do?" Get to work you f*cking cowards and figure it out. You owe it to women and and trans athletes around the world... f*cking get it done.
I'm not going to post the URL because the Google makes such scientific studies showing that men's vision is superior for sports like DH racing, motor racing, clay pigeon shooting and tennis so easy to find. I've read plenty. Note that hormone therapy will never take the advantage away because superior vision was developed before birth and not during puberty.
Eyesight is one of the greatest predictors of sporting performance for a reason.
"Won't anybody think of our women? The poor things are surely too flighty and hysterical to speak up about this for themselves! We must protect their feminine virtue by arguing about this online!"
Post a Comment