Cannonball Festival, GoPro Australian Open Downhill - Recap

As summer kicks off in Australia, so does this season’s race calendar and the first event off the ranks is none other than Thredbo’s Cannonball Festival. A highlight for competitors and fans, Thredbo has the convenience of village living and lift assisted runs all weekend. Based in the scenic NSW Snowy Mountains Cannonball is one of the biggest social events of the season. And it did not disappoint, with this year’s schedule including the new all mountain trail for the Canyon All Mountain Assault. The festival also included the crowd - pleasing Rock Shox Pump Track Challenge, SRAM Whip Wars and the Maxxis Flowmotion cup. However, it’s the GoPro Downhill Australian Open on the festival’s final day that drew riders from near and far. This year's schedule saw Troy Brosnan and Connor Fearon facing off with many great Aussie riders and even a few Pro riders from across the ditch. Cannonball Festival welcomed many World Cup riders including the well known Vanzacs boys. GT factory rider, Brook MacDonald, and Bergamont's Eddie Masters were welcomed as they made their appearance at the festival. Representing the women’s elite field was an impressive list of top Australian riders, the likes of Tegan Molloy and Danni Beecroft to name a few.


This year's Cannonball Festival boasted record entrant numbers, with 600 plus competitors overall. The Downhill field saw near 400 entrants hit the track to compete for top spot. With so many competitors there was never a dull moment on the mountain, giving both the trails and organisers a serious workout. This year the Cannonball Downhill trail has undergone a few modifications, giving some key sections of the trail a new look and feel to suit the highest level of racing. The weekend got off to a cold start on Friday after an overnight dusting of snow on the highest peaks. The tracks were damp and sticky for the first day and conditions stayed cool barely cracking a top temp of 5 degrees. However conditions dried out over the weekend making for a dusty finish on Sunday afternoon. Seeding was short and sharp on Saturday afternoon with Brosnan laying down the fastest time, and Fearon a mere 1.43 seconds behind him. Luke Ellison laid down a scorching run to qualify third fastest ahead of Thomas Crimmins and Jordan Prochyra.


On race day the sun was out in full force and so were the crowds ready to see the racers give it their all to take the Cannonball title. With a couple of sunny days and a few hundred riders lapping the track conditions were blown out and dusty by the time the elite fields hit the track late on Sunday afternoon. The racing was fierce in junior men’s with Josh Clark taking the win over Kye A’Hern and Baxter Maiwald. Without a seeding run to see where everyone stood, the Elite Women’s race was filled with action. Kellie Weinert, a strong favourite in Thredbo, suffered a crash which was enough put her out of the winning times. Danielle Beecroft lay down a scorching run, which put her in the hot seat until Tegan Molloy pushed herself right to the limit to take the top spot. Ronja Hill-Wright put in a solid effort to take the third seat on the podium in front of Sarah Booth and Shelly Flood.

The Elite Men’s race was set to be a cracker with the track getting looser by the minute it was anyone’s race. Graeme Mudd suffered a flat in seeding so his early run during finals saw him sitting in the hot seat well into the top ten riders. His place, finally taken by Joel Willis a young gun who will be one to watch this year. Tom Crimmins was next to ride into the top spot only to be pushed back out by a blistering run from Luke Ellison, which looked impossible to beat. Fearon came flying across the finish line but it was not enough to top Ellison’s time. The last man down the hill was Brosnan and the anticipation was at an all-time high to see what he could do. He did not disappoint as he threw down the fastest time of the weekend cracking the 5 minute mark and taking the win for the second year running.




































































Once again Thredbo’s Cannonball Festival was an epic weekend and a fantastic way to kick off this season’s event calendar.


Full results here: www.thredbo.com.au/event-results/

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MENTIONS: @benstevens / @GoPro

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