The biggest event in UK (and the world, for the past five years!) mountain biking once again returned to the Highland town of Fort William. Riders from all over the globe made the trek to compete in the Cross Country, Downhill and 4 Cross disciplines. Rare Management promised another great show and even the weather was working on their side this year! With Alpine Bikes as the main retail sponsor, a small group of us headed up to the event to take in the festivities and ensure that we were on hand to help out with the proceedings.
Friday night saw the 4 Cross (4X) on the continually evolving course which always produces close and frantic racing and on more than one occasion, riders getting a little too friendly with the crowds. Returning to Scotland for the 4X this year were the usual favourites; Jared Graves, Michal Prokop and Dan Atherton all vying for the top spot on the podium. Missing, however, was Brian Lopes, the current World Champion – it seems the upcoming Olympic Games has forced many riders to take time out to focus on their BMX riding. After the qualifying rounds, the finals saw Dan Atherton, Jared Graves, Michal Prokop and Joost Wichelman all go wheel to wheel on the course. If you’re a 4X follower you would have expected Graves to walk away with the win – and you’d be right! The Aussie Olympian once again led from start to finish and was pretty pleased with his bottle of Champagne on the podium.
The woman’s 4X turned out to be a break from the norm when the dominant Anneke Beerten was pushed down the rankings thanks to a flat tyre. Up until this race, she had been unbeaten on the World Cup circuit. It was down to Jana Horakova to take the win from Rachel Seydoux, Anneke Beerten and Melissa Buhl. Although, the podium seemed a little more civilized compared to the gents – think that could be down to the female racers receiving flowers rather than Champagne!
Saturday saw the Cross Country (XC) take the main stage. The XC race course in Fort William is regularly seen to be one of the toughest trails in the world. Lots of climbing with some super-technical descending (big rocks, in laymen’s terms!) and one thing that absolutely no-one was considering – high temperatures and dusty trails always guarantees some proper racing. The course this year was 8km long with the men doing 6 laps and the women tackling 5.
In the men’s race, World Cup leader and World Championship holder Julien Absalon was missing after problems in the last round in Andorra forced him to take some time out to prepare for the 2008 Worlds and the Olympics. This left the door open for many other riders to gain a victory and move up the World Cup leaderboard. In the end it was a Swiss 1-2-3 as Florian Vogel, Nino Schurter (an Under-23 category racer!) and Christophe Sauser took their respective places on the winner’s steps. The racing proved to be tough with Vogel admitting “we were so much at the limit that I nearly bonked (a slang term for completely running out of energy) on the last lap.".
Onto the women’s race and it seemed that the win could have fallen to any one of 6 riders: Marga Fullana, Marie-Helene Premont, Sabine Spitz, Lene Byberg, Gunn-rita Dahl-Flessja and Lene Byberg. Unbelievably, some of the female riders reveled in the warm conditions and pulled away from the main group early and continued to push to the very end. In particular Premont and Fullana separated from the chasing group in the first kilometer and were unstoppable right up until the finish line. In the end, the podium saw Premont take first, Fullana second and Spitz grabbing third. Premont was particularly happy as this was her first win of the year saying “It was my goal to win a World Cup here, and now I know that I am on proper form for the world championships”.
Sunday for many fans and enthusiasts is the main event – the Downhill. The longest course in the World Cup circuit always challenges riders and forces them to push harder than anywhere else. Of course, the main issue in Scotland is normally lack of grip through wet and wild conditions. This year still saw the lack of grip issues, but this time it was down to inches of dust thanks to the unusually high temperatures. As always, there were a couple of tweaks made to the course just to make sure the riders were actually trying.
The women’s World Cup Championship is very tight this year with Rachel Atherton, Sabrina Jonnier and Tracy Moseley constantly battling for position at venues around the world. In previous years, Moseley and Jonnier have had strong showings here, whilst Atherton is on the crest of a wave after taking the win at Andorra the previous week. Atherton managed to secure a good time on her race run, until Jonnier took the hot seat with a particularly good run. Moseley caused controversy by donning a skinsuit for her run then promptly taking the win by a massive four seconds. Moseley said that she just “tried to improve upon the things I did in the semi-final. There was nothing big, just little bits here and there that made the difference”. Rachel Atherton made her feelings on the skinsuit debate pretty well known – "It was no battle here against a skinsuit on this course. With the top so open and windy, you can make four or five seconds easy. There's lots of issues with using them, I think; if Tracy wants to use one, that's her game, but I don't agree with them at all."
At the bottom of the hill, the crowds gathered in their numbers to watch the men’s event. With so many talented riders, no one could agree on the winner of the third round. Gee Atherton looks particularly strong just now, especially after a winning performance at Andorra. Sam Hill is always a threat, winning pretty much every title a World Cup Downhiller can win. Then there’s the constant challenges from Steve Peat, Nathan Rennie and Greg Minnaar. Tension was never in short supply as the finals kicked off and it was immediately noticeable that the riders were pushing hard. The Orange Mojo team were adding to the skinsuit dilemma by wearing rather eye-catching shiny black full-length outfits. Whether or not they worked, remains to be seen!
The big surprise of the day was Hill not claiming the top spot or even getting to sit in the hot seat, for that matter. Atherton blew the field away, but looked visibly exhausted as he crossed the line. Everyone was pretty convinced that Gee had it sewn up until the live-feed of Minnaar’s run appeared on the big screen. He was noticeably faster and looking very smooth and flew over the final jump 3 seconds ahead of everyone else. Minnaar took the win with a time 4.43 and an average speed of 20mph.
The event proved to be another success, even the midges weren’t as annoying as they usually are. Probably something to do with the sun splitting the skies and forcing them to hide somewhere cooler. either way it was a welcome surprise!