5 Things We Learned From the Les Gets DH World Cup
Both Winners Battled Injuries
![photo]()
![photo]()
Both Thibaut Daprela and Tahnee Seagrave battled injury to take the wins on Saturday. Less than a week before the race Thibaut Daprela was being airlifted from a French Cup race with a battered face and a tongue that had to be stitched back together. He spent the week subsisting on chicken and rice milkshakes and then crashed again on the first day of training. His stitches were apparently coming loose during his race run but he battled through to beat the conditions and his competitors for a first Elite win that we're convinced won't be his last.
Tahnee Seagrave was also struggling coming into the race weekend. It sounds like she had all but written off the chances of a win before the weekend and ended up surprising even herself. A neck injury picked up just before Leogang has meant a lack of bike time for Tahnee and the Les Gets track was far from the easy re-introduction she'll have been hoping for. However, like most of the women racing, Tahnee overcame her demons with the track and was able to prove her pace with a run that will without doubt be a huge confidence boost for the rest of the year.
Thibaut Daprela Bossed the Wet Conditions
![Thibaut Daprela full tuck on the final off-camber grass. It would take more than a broken nose and lacerated tongue to stop him.]()
![photo]()
French jump builders don't mess around
![Reece Wilson may have used one of his 9 lives today]()
For the second year in a row, the builders in Les Gets provided the riders with some seriously intimidating airtime. In 2019, the finish line fly off left Rachel Atherton with a ruptured Achilles' Tendon and this year the new track provided some more aerial challenges for riders. The step down near the top of the course claimed a number of victims including Marine Cabirou, who had to pull out after her front wheel washed out on the take-off and she missed the landing.
On race day, there were crashes all over the mountain but the biggest and most discussed must surely be Reece Wilson's on the river gap. This booter got rutted up throughout the week then the rain on race day softened it up between training and racing. Reece hit it at full throttle but ended up being bucked and thrown over the bars. A dab of brakes may have saved Reece Wilson's visor but that's usually the last thing on a rider's mind in a race run.
We loved the tech and wide taping on offer on the new track but riders also need to feel safe to push their limits the whole way down a track. In future, we'd love to see jumps designed to survive a whole weekend of racing with clean and predictable entries and exits that cater to all the different race categories to keep the racing safe as well as great to watch.
French Crowds Make Races
![Euro 2020 DH edition.]()
With the crowds back at the races in Les Gets, it felt like we were watching a 'proper' World Cup for the first time since 2019 and there is no better crowd to welcome back first than the rabid French. With chainsaws, flares and finish area invasions they showed us exactly what we've been missing due to COVID and we're hoping for more of the same at the rest of the races this year.
At the Enduro World Series in Val di Fassa last week we also praised the pit atmosphere, comparing it to the World Cup pits parites of old. Well, if the few clips that made it to social media are anything to go by, that party culture hasn't gone anywhere from dh either.
Jackson Goldstone Follows in Finn Iles and Vali Holl's Footsteps
![Jackson Goldstone on his way to winning the junior men s race]()
We've spent a lot of time hyping up Daprela's run in this piece but he actually wasn't the fastest rider of the day, that honour goes to Jackson Goldstone. The first year junior posted a 3:26.950, which is not only 7 seconds faster than Daprela's time but also 5 seconds faster than Vergier's qualifying time. It goes without saying that the conditions were obviously different between the runs but there's no denying Goldstone put down one hell of a run.
Since the introduction of the junior classes, only two riders have posted the best times for their gender while racing in the junior ranks. Vali Holl did it twice in 2019 and Finn Iles did it at the rain-affected Mont Sainte Anne race in 2017. In repeating this feat, Goldstone confirms his potential to be one of the world's fastest racers.
Keep an eye out for Phoebe Gale too. The young British racer is under the tutelage of Tahnee Seagrave on the Canyon Collective FMD team and took the win in her second ever World Cup. Her time of 4:21 would have seen her place seventh in the women’s race, just behind Eleonora Farina and ahead of Vali Holl. Britain has a long pedigree of fast women racers and Phoebe Gale may be next in line to carry that on.
Thibaut Daprela looking frustrated after crashing on Day 1 in Les Gets. Photos submitted by Thomas Dupret.
Both Thibaut Daprela and Tahnee Seagrave battled injury to take the wins on Saturday. Less than a week before the race Thibaut Daprela was being airlifted from a French Cup race with a battered face and a tongue that had to be stitched back together. He spent the week subsisting on chicken and rice milkshakes and then crashed again on the first day of training. His stitches were apparently coming loose during his race run but he battled through to beat the conditions and his competitors for a first Elite win that we're convinced won't be his last.
Tahnee Seagrave was also struggling coming into the race weekend. It sounds like she had all but written off the chances of a win before the weekend and ended up surprising even herself. A neck injury picked up just before Leogang has meant a lack of bike time for Tahnee and the Les Gets track was far from the easy re-introduction she'll have been hoping for. However, like most of the women racing, Tahnee overcame her demons with the track and was able to prove her pace with a run that will without doubt be a huge confidence boost for the rest of the year.
Thibaut Daprela Bossed the Wet Conditions
Thibaut Daprela wasn't just riding through his own pain barrier but also the torrid conditions. It's probably fair to say that the conditions worsened from Brook MacDonald onwards but Thibaut's run was still done in far from optimal conditions.
Despite coming down in the wet, Daprela's time was just two seconds off Loris Vergier's dry winning time in qualifying, he was also head and shoulders above the riders who dropped in around him - the five riders before him finished 13th, 26th, 41st, 51st and 5th, while the five riders after him finished 59th, 36th, 40th, 46th and 61st, so it's clear he was on heater, rain or not.
Yes, there will be a lot of riders taking a philosophical look at the weekend, whether those who were gifted some overall points by the deluge or top qualifiers who will rue losing their opportunity to take a podium but unfortunately unpredictable mountain weather is a big part of mountain sports. Credit where credit is due, the UCI and Red Bull have done as much as possible to avoid afternoon Alpine storms such as re-jigging the race schedules in 2018 and introducing the protected rider system, but sometimes, there's not much you can do when a big storm is due to roll in just after lunchtime.
Yes, it can sometimes be disappointing to not see the world's top riders battle it out in identical conditions but equally watching riders such as Coulanges, Minnaar, Kerr and Wilson skillfully slither down the waterlogged course was equally as exciting to watch.
Despite coming down in the wet, Daprela's time was just two seconds off Loris Vergier's dry winning time in qualifying, he was also head and shoulders above the riders who dropped in around him - the five riders before him finished 13th, 26th, 41st, 51st and 5th, while the five riders after him finished 59th, 36th, 40th, 46th and 61st, so it's clear he was on heater, rain or not.
Yes, there will be a lot of riders taking a philosophical look at the weekend, whether those who were gifted some overall points by the deluge or top qualifiers who will rue losing their opportunity to take a podium but unfortunately unpredictable mountain weather is a big part of mountain sports. Credit where credit is due, the UCI and Red Bull have done as much as possible to avoid afternoon Alpine storms such as re-jigging the race schedules in 2018 and introducing the protected rider system, but sometimes, there's not much you can do when a big storm is due to roll in just after lunchtime.
Yes, it can sometimes be disappointing to not see the world's top riders battle it out in identical conditions but equally watching riders such as Coulanges, Minnaar, Kerr and Wilson skillfully slither down the waterlogged course was equally as exciting to watch.
A graph showing riders starting vs finishing position. Any riders whose line goes lower did better than their starting position. Of the top 25 riders, only Ronan Dunne, Mark Wallace, Matt Walker, Greg Minnaar and Thibaut Daprela achieved this.
French jump builders don't mess around
For the second year in a row, the builders in Les Gets provided the riders with some seriously intimidating airtime. In 2019, the finish line fly off left Rachel Atherton with a ruptured Achilles' Tendon and this year the new track provided some more aerial challenges for riders. The step down near the top of the course claimed a number of victims including Marine Cabirou, who had to pull out after her front wheel washed out on the take-off and she missed the landing.
On race day, there were crashes all over the mountain but the biggest and most discussed must surely be Reece Wilson's on the river gap. This booter got rutted up throughout the week then the rain on race day softened it up between training and racing. Reece hit it at full throttle but ended up being bucked and thrown over the bars. A dab of brakes may have saved Reece Wilson's visor but that's usually the last thing on a rider's mind in a race run.
We loved the tech and wide taping on offer on the new track but riders also need to feel safe to push their limits the whole way down a track. In future, we'd love to see jumps designed to survive a whole weekend of racing with clean and predictable entries and exits that cater to all the different race categories to keep the racing safe as well as great to watch.
French Crowds Make Races
With the crowds back at the races in Les Gets, it felt like we were watching a 'proper' World Cup for the first time since 2019 and there is no better crowd to welcome back first than the rabid French. With chainsaws, flares and finish area invasions they showed us exactly what we've been missing due to COVID and we're hoping for more of the same at the rest of the races this year.
At the Enduro World Series in Val di Fassa last week we also praised the pit atmosphere, comparing it to the World Cup pits parites of old. Well, if the few clips that made it to social media are anything to go by, that party culture hasn't gone anywhere from dh either.
Jackson Goldstone Follows in Finn Iles and Vali Holl's Footsteps
We've spent a lot of time hyping up Daprela's run in this piece but he actually wasn't the fastest rider of the day, that honour goes to Jackson Goldstone. The first year junior posted a 3:26.950, which is not only 7 seconds faster than Daprela's time but also 5 seconds faster than Vergier's qualifying time. It goes without saying that the conditions were obviously different between the runs but there's no denying Goldstone put down one hell of a run.
Since the introduction of the junior classes, only two riders have posted the best times for their gender while racing in the junior ranks. Vali Holl did it twice in 2019 and Finn Iles did it at the rain-affected Mont Sainte Anne race in 2017. In repeating this feat, Goldstone confirms his potential to be one of the world's fastest racers.
Keep an eye out for Phoebe Gale too. The young British racer is under the tutelage of Tahnee Seagrave on the Canyon Collective FMD team and took the win in her second ever World Cup. Her time of 4:21 would have seen her place seventh in the women’s race, just behind Eleonora Farina and ahead of Vali Holl. Britain has a long pedigree of fast women racers and Phoebe Gale may be next in line to carry that on.
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Lots more people ride during daylight than illuminated conditions = more accidents
Statistically more more people doing something obviously leads to a higher amount of accidents.
Hardly relevant
I largely based my statement on this news article, but unfortunately it is in Dutch. Not sure how well these automatic translation services work for you, but it may be worth a shot. nos.nl/artikel/2383296-opvallend-veel-zware-ongelukken-op-de-weg-bij-mooi-weer-let-je-minder-goed-op
Could you cite a source that supports your opposite statement?
Not sure how this translates to bike racing on a closed course. Yet still somehow it feels like more riders are getting injured in fast predictable conditions than in, say, the past two races in Leogang where loads of riders went down but few (if any) got injured. Maybe I'm wrong but it seems like indeed more riders go down in slippery conditions (Champery, Leogang lately) but the serious injuries are sustained in more "ideal" conditions.
I would think the riders who crashed on the gap jump probalby even payed extra attention. So that shouldn't be the problem here.
But I think in a general sense that it is correct for mountainbiking. If you pay less attention because you think everything is easy you might not be ready if something goes sideways. Plus you are probably going faster in "ideal" conditions further increasing the likelyhood of a more severe crash.
What should be noted of course is that the bail/crash options should be safe. It shouldn't be like you crash into a pile of boulders if something foreseeable goes wrong. Basically, don't follow Gee Atherton down his own lines. But for Les Gets, I think they did well. Andreas Kolb did miss the jump and safely crossed the taping. Yes Reece Wilson took a big tumble but he did land on a grassy downslope (for as far as I could see). If there'd be a mess down where he landed then yes, I'd say that was unsafe. What I do agree on is that the rider should have the option. If the take off appears too slippery upon arrival, there should still be a chicken line around the outside to opt for.
Your point of view is not considering a lot, and I mean a shitload ton of variables, and using articles comparing to vehicles and average Joes is an insult to every professioanl or rider that take some risks to have fun.
He manhandled it in the very worst conditions.
Also, they cover the hole XC course for the race, I'ts not that big of an invetiment for them to have the hole DH track covered. Especially with those GoPros lying down.
I also drink some redbull now and then, so I put money into the company.
1) Shorten all of the courses to be under 3 minutes
or
2) Increase the gap between riders starting
or
3) Have multiple feeds, flip-flopping between riders
There are 2 people on course at any given time during the race, so they can't just show full race runs for everyone.
Everyone wants to see the finish line and the start hut, so something in the middle has to be cut out. Usually that's something near the top so there can be uninterrupted coverage from some point to the finish line.
Enable old man mode>
At least you don't need to wait until a few months after the end of the season to buy the DVD to watch the races anymore.
With that being said a good percentage of the riders made it over them - Im thinking those gaps were pretty on the nose for a world cup race - shouldnt be easy jumps right??
That's a good point, you can't really call DH a calculated risk when the conditions you are riding in and the state of the course are an unknown
Having said that, wind makes jumps dangerous too. Surely riders could choose not to hit them.
The tdf is boring because it's too long. There is a reason why they can easily make a five hour day into a 20 minute highlights package - because nothing happens for the most part. It's like test cricket. A great day out to hang around getting drunk with your mates while ostensibly "watching sport". It's hardly a spectacle. The sprint finishes and crashes are the entertainment, and they last seconds.
I'm not sure how I feel on this one - you can't tell the racers 'if you can't hit this then take the ride around' since no one will use the ride around, but also you need to keep things difficult so that the top tier guys can separate themselves. One thing that needs to be noted is that for the early practice runs & elite category race runs, the track was really muddy and close to the worst case scenario safety-wise. The river gap where Reece Wilson crashed was smaller but the run in was pretty janky (especially in the mud) and he admitted that he took the straight line, didn't touch his brakes and just couldn't hang on. Bernard Kerr also mentioned taking 'the Reece line' into that jump in practice and it was too fast, which is a lot coming from him. I think the river gap is a good jump to have, but will get a bad rap because of how bad that crash looked in Wilson's race run. On the other hand the road gap had a smoother setup and landing but was way higher consequence (as seen by the various injuries from the weekend). I don't think a step down needs to be that large to differentiate the skills of the riders, especially for a jump that wasn't even on the red bull feed. I should note that I will never jump anything close to that in my life. It's gotta be tough for a course designer to make a track that's 1) challenging for the best in the sport with good weather 2) Is still rideable & safe enough in the wet 3) Good to watch on a live feed with limited numbers of cameras.
Please don’t dumb the tracks down and make them all bike park tracks just because of a few crashes.
Ideally I’d like to watch the best of the best battling each other on equal footing, rather than watch them battling the elements and/or lucking out with starting position.
Would mean redbull would have to be on board
Some parts of Europe have very predictable weather forecasts.
Didn’t crankwoks rejig there slopestyle times to get less wind because of inclement weather recently?
There was some “he deserved the win” being said through gritted teeth in public.
No matter how dangerous a feature is, the builders have to take precautions if „things go wrong“.
Another point to consider: The speed with new bikes, suspension, wheelsizes during the last 10 years increased dramatically, and this should be considered when building a racetrack.
TLDR: I'm crotchety and some might say old; get off my lawn.
The tracks are long, plenty of spots to avoid the really noisy shit
It just would seem to me if you know there's potential rain later in the day then look to have a slower time and go first in the drier conditions.
'Any rider whose time being 100% slower of that of the first established time is listed in the results as DNF (did not finish) and is not awarded any points. This rule is applied for qualifying rounds and finals'
So they really can't mess around too much...
I think the only way to be 100% slower is to get a DNS…
Their beer is pretty good though.
Meier- Smith Brothers are from NSW Mid North Coast I think.
I don't think we've had one from here in Sydney/Blue Mountains since Rennie.
But no on paper Adelaide vs Newcaste - even National DH Champions, let alone World Cups?
Your theory is almost entirely based on Troy. Troy is incredible! Conner is a great rider but not an outlier by Aus standards.
If you look back a bit further in history, Cairns was the hot spot with Ronning and McCarrol, and Canberra has produced a lot of amazing riders too, like Rando and Ben Cory. SE QLD produced Kovarik and Grubby.
Perth has thrown up some other shredders too with Johnny Waddell back in the day.
I think if you did a bit of analysis you would see that the areas that produce great riders at any particular time have healthy racing scenes and tracks that build skills.
Unfortunately at the moment Auscycling (and its predecessor MTBA) are doing their best to ruin DH racing, killing off the national series and giving no support to our juniors and not allowing them to go to worlds for the last 2 years.
"Thibaut Daprela wasn't just riding through his own pain barrier but also the torrid conditions."
Synonyms & Antonyms for torrid
Synonyms
ardent, boiling, broiling, burning, fervent, fervid, fiery, hot, piping hot, red, red-hot, roasting, scalding, scorching, searing, sultry, superheated, sweltering, ultrahot, white-hot
Antonyms
algid, arctic, bitter, bone-chilling, cold, freezing, frigid, frozen, glacial, ice-cold, iced, icy
Dictionary definitions;
BRITISH
full of difficulty.
"he'd been given a pretty torrid time by the nation's voters"
3. ADJECTIVE [usually ADJECTIVE noun]
If someone or something has a torrid time, they experience a lot of difficulties.
Party at the back, business at the front. Think I'll keep it.
They’ll race whatever is fastest, some prefer the mullet and others don’t. Who even cares lol