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Vigo this morning, and for a large part of last night, borrowed the weather from Fort William. Yep, the wind has been howling and we have had showers that would do the Nevis Ranges out of an occupation! The jet washers are now out for every run, making sure everything stays clean and looking good for the final day. The course though has been blessed with a bit of a downpour. Taking off the top layer of dust gave things a bit of a firmer feel. The top of the track was taking a little longer to dry up, but the general consensus was that things were quicker this morning.  Not the sunshine we were all after  Sabrina Jonnier's winning race bike getting an early morning clean  Brendan raced now well part of the Honda family
The women managed to avoid any of the showers for their race runs. Fionn Griffiths held the hot seat for a long time, but in end the whole field became victim to a flat out run from Sabrinna Jonnier. Sabrinna was fastest in qualifying and a whole 7 seconds clear of the second place of Tracy Moseley who herself finished ahead of Emmeline Ragot. Tracey Hannah didn't look too happy with her run coming into the finish, finishing in 8th. Fionn came in 6th and Emily Horridge came in 12th - hopefully meaning selection for the Worlds team for Fort William come September. Sabrinna Jonnier - Smoked everyone to take the win with 7 seconds to spare  Tracey Hannah - Flying in practice grabs 8th The men's race saw a complete change of events. Marc Beaumont qualified 75th yesterday, with a crash in his run, and therefore was one of the first down today. Was is a tactical crash? Well with some pretty serious downpours it meant the rest of the pack couldn't beat his time of 2:37 - much to the disgruntlement of Martin Whiteley insisting that the top riders should be going first because of the weather forecast. Still, that's racing sports fans and today it was Marc's day. His first world cup win! It was a nervous end, the track drying more and more towards the final riders. Each of them getting closer at the split interval and everyone giving it everything into the finish. This was top racing, the win might have been slightly fortunate, but that isn't going to alter the result and the celebrating that goes into the night. Vasquez Lopez came in 2nd with a time of 2:38.57 half a second ahead of Greg Minnaar in 3rd. Steve Peat completed the podium in 4th with Sam Hill in 5th. Just shows how much these guys were on it in the damp conditions to hone down on the winning time, but it proved to be just a little to damp to win the first round of the World Cup. Tom Braithwaite was on the leader board with Marc for a long time and finished 9th and Ruaridh Cunningham got a good result to finish 12th. In all 13 brits in the top 30 can't be bad for us. Expect to hear our national anthem at more than one world cup this year.  Marc Beaumont - First World Cup win  Greg Minnaar - The track dried up enough to get 2nd, pinned  Tom Braitwaite - First top 10 World Cup finish  Steve Peat - Team Santa Cruz Syndicate - gunned it to the finish to hit 4th spot So in summary, once again Vigo has been an awesome race. The weather on the whole has been fine, apart from the downpour of rain today for the mens, and then a hailstorm all of which Beaumont had to endure in the hot-seat, nice and protected - but he won't be complaining. We had a dog run up the finish line in the mens final and nearly got crushed. And the crowd? Well they love it and make an immense racket for every rider coming down the hill. The atmosphere has been brilliant and has felt like a proper World Cup, a real pinnacle of racing events. Gee winning the 4x this weekend too has given us all a further buzz, and I think everyone, qualified or not, has had a good trip out here.  The old apprentice with his master - Peat and Beaumont We're off back to the Hotel now for a lot of beers, a British win needs to be celebrate and a first British win for some definitely needs to be celebrated! Keep checking back at the site over the next week, we'll have the Vigo gallery once we have been through all the pics we've taken over the weekend.
Full results can be found at: http://www.nissan-ucimtbworldcup.com/
Keep it on the wheels.......... |
