Polygon
Coming into this race, Tracey felt pretty confident with a win in Crankworx Rotorua. Tracey was building her speed steadily and qualified 4th at 3sec from 1st place. For her race run she felt confident and super faster towards the end of the track with the fastest split at the bottom section! When the dust settled we realized that Tracey finished 2nd just 2.5 seconds behind Rachel Atherton which is looking good for having a tight racing season for the women.
After a great 2nd place at Crankworx Rotorua Mick was confident. He was fast and smooth all week. On race day he was in attack mode but probably a bit too much and that's why he crashed but Mick was on a much faster pace compared to last year on this track and his split time before his crash was around the top 10. That's looking good for the end of season goals!
For Alex coming to Lourdes was a different story because after spending his winter in Queenstown New Zealand being able to ride a lot, train hard and work on the bike. Lourdes was his first real test, and Lourdes is a track that suits Alex. For the qualification, he had a puncture mid track but instead of giving up, he gave it all because he wanted to qualify more than anything. It was a 52nd place for him! We still can't believe he qualified riding a flat half of the track!
Race run came and he hit everything he wanted, he had an incredible bottom section cutting some inside lines and jumping from one corner to another, his first words were: "I went really fast, I can't believe I held on!" The time he put was 0.1 second close to Loris Vergier who qualified first. From there the waiting game began and all competitors were pretty far and no one was able to get close to his time then for the last 15 riders a storm arrived the weather changed completely and Alex won with 3.3 seconds gap.
These awesome 2 podiums made us fastest team of the day, which is the best way for us to thank everyone who worked so hard!
MS Mondraker
This is the first edit by Mayhemedia covering our season through their eye… as you already know our race didn't end as we hoped for, but with Laurie Macqueen Greenland in 11th and Downhill Pekoll Markus in 12th we had a decent result. This edit shows the conditions Danny Hart had to fight with. The pictures are self-explanatory.
Cedric Gracia
The World Cup in Lourdes is over and I would like to share my feedback about the race and 29in wheels.
Propain Dirt Zelvy
Our first stop on the world cup circuit took us to the town of Lourdes, situated in the south of France. The course had been revamped this year and with wide open taped sections line choice was vast. The track was flat out and we had a super weekend. We couldn't be prouder of our 2 junior riders. Henry and George Kerr, who both qualified for their first ever world cup and were looking pinned all weekend. Unfortunately, the jagged rocks of the Pic Du Jer lead to flat tyres for both our elite riders and saw them sitting out race day. However, we had a great weekend and everyone is looking forward to Fort William and we hope to see you there. Be sure to swing by our pits and say hi. Enjoy the edit!
YT Mob
The opening round of the UCI World Cup was turned on its head when the top 10 qualifiers from Saturday were dealt with gale force winds, rain and low visibility as they took to the challenging downhill track here in Lourdes (FRA), which lies in the foothills of the Pyrenees Mountains. Despite the event being 2 weeks later than last year, snow fell on the track earlier in the week, and the sunny conditions of Saturday’s qualifying made way for very difficult conditions today in the finals.
Norco Factory Racing
With the Norco Factory Racing boys on new bikes, the equipment was in check, the only thing standing in their way was the challenging Lourdes track.
Henry took to the hill, the stoke was high, loving the trail and bike. All through practice he looked solid but come qualification run and in his nation's jersey, he washed out, putting him out of contention for the big day.
Joe was looking super quick, ready for war and eager to get a good result under his belt after some stormers at Crankworx Rotorua. But in his qualification run he flipped the bars just before a big compression and after taking it like a champ rode another 100 foot before ducking out the tape with a dislocated shoulder.
Sam was feeling good, just excited to ride after being off with a shoulder injury from New Zealand and it showed! Looking loose and fast Sam came through qualifications in 17th place, but eager for more come race day. Race runs came and Sam was looking good, pedaling hard, even in the air! Frenchman Fayolle had set a blistering time, enough to hold Blenki off, with Sam finishing 20th, enough to protect him for Fort Will and sit in a top 20 spot coming into a fresh season. Just a start of things to come for the kiwi.
One Vision Global Racing
World Cup racing. It came back at the weekend and we were super excited to get the 2017 season underway! We arrived in Lourdes on Wednesday to get our new team pit set up for the weekend, as well as walk the track and prepare the bikes on Thursday. Lourdes had seen rain in the run up to the event, so the track was going to be slippery at the start of practice for the guys in group B first thing on Friday morning! Luckily all of our guys were in group A and wouldn’t start practice until 11.45am on Friday, so by then we knew the track would be dry and the lads had their Schwalbe Magic Mary tyres on ready for the fast conditions.
Team Dorval AM Nicolai
The french team Dorval AM Nicolai went to Lourdes for the first World Cup. Our Junior, Mélanie Chappaz, finished first with a crash on the wall section. Mariana Salazar was confident on jumps everytime during the weekend and she finished 9th. A great result to start the race season with.
Benoit Coulanges ride the finals before the storm. He stayed in the hot seat next to Alexandre Fayolle a long time. He finished 9th too. His best result in his career.
MENTIONS:
@norcobicycles
loosing time through a crash therefore is irrelevant in this scenario.
inconsistent application of this rule by the uci is a no go nevertheless. but I think in the last years the uci applied it rather strict.
It was awesome to see everyone back at it... but man that race was crap to watch. Hoping for more drama at fort william
youtu.be/QYCVRvZ1fIw
Or wait for all the team videos ready and compile them at once, instead of update one by one.