Dad and I got to La Massana, the home town of the event, in the early hours of Tuesday morning. Although we didn’t know it at the time we made a turn up the wrong mountain and driven for the best part of an hour. We were told at la Bresse that the course had to be uncovered by 5 foot of snow so we weren’t surprised to see the mountain covered in it. We pretty much got to the top and decided it couldn’t have been the right mountain. The road had been dug out from the snow and walls higher than the car dominated the road. Some intimidating flashes and bangs lurched closer as a hail storm broke out so we went down before we were covered in ice.
When we managed to find the course we walked it a couple of times. It was wet and raining on and off Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. I managed to walk the course a few times on Wednesday again and I could run through it in my head without having ridden it yet. On Thursday I went riding on some other courses with Dad. We did some really steep courses that were super fast and rocky. It’s pretty good for DH in Vallnord with about 10 variations of runs from just one of the lifts. For each run we did we would stop a few times to have short rests and let the smell of burning brakes die off; some seriously fast and long runs!
So Friday (training day) came around and I got on one of the first chairs to the top. After last week’s performance I knew that practising at speed was very important. It was very wet and muddy by the look of the people riding down. The track was quite typically British with mostly wooded sections with rocks, roots and ruts. For those of you who have been to Rheola (Wales) the ground was a lot like that with loose rocky ground at the top and wooded and rutted for the most of the course. It had 7 amazing switch-backs at the start of the course which took about 5 seconds to get through just bouncing from one to the other. The top was very loose and fast with just flat turns, berms, jumps and blind drops at 50km/h. The middle section started off wooded with natural rock drops and rooty corners with a fast open off camber section with stumps and ruts. The bottom section was just corner after corner with roots, rocks and some serious speeds with huge holes from braking. After a few runs I was hitting all my lines and I was getting arm pump. I managed about 10 runs in the practise from 8:30 – 2:30 with 2 breaks. It took less than 10 mins to que and get to the top! I run high rollers for the first 3 runs and although it was not bad I changed to spikes mainly because Liam Mason pointed out that no one else was on high rollers. By the end of the day it dried up and high rollers were favourite for Saturday morning. In one of my last runs down a rock flew up into my bash ring and finished off the job from La Bresse so most of Friday night was spend trying to fix it.
Practise was early at 8am on Saturday so I managed to get 4 runs in before elite practise where Dad managed to find another bash ring. The bike was running smoothly and I was happy with how the course was changing. I was very pleased with the speed I was at with the course; My last run down I followed Dan Stanbridge on a practise race run and I managed to keep on his back wheel but was going as fast as I could to do it so I stopped about a minute in so I wasn’t too ruined before runs.
So it came to my qualifying run:
I had the top section as well as I had done in practise and kept my speed well. I got to the first wooded section where I heard Josh, Greg and Peaty from the Santa Cruise Syndicate all chearing me on. I did the open section well and came to the woods again. I got a smooth run jumping a few rocks and roots. I made a big mistake in a berm loosing speed and cost me a second or so. I knew after my first world cup there was no room for mistakes with only 13 seconds from 1st to 80th but I kept on a good one. I got to the tight, steep switch backs before the road and a guy was getting up off the floor from a crash. Instead of moving his bike he just got on, sat down like some riders do when they give up; and cruised down the hill. The crowd was shouting alongside the marshal and I contributed to the noise pretty well but he just would not move. Further down the course I overtook him on a fireroad. It felt like absolutely forever that I was behind him but realistically now I think it was around 10 seconds. I pinned it to the bottom without a worry though as Monet Adams had the same problem in La Bresse. However she did not tell anyone quickly enough for anything to be sorted so I thought as long as I told whoever I had to at the bottom straight away it would be fine. I had the bottom of the course good and pedalled through the finish. I literally skidded sideways and stopped by the English commentator to ask what I had to do and he pointed me to Chris, I went to him and he said he would see what he can do and with that he went to the UCI and told them. He came back and said that it just isn’t possible... I was just over 5 seconds off of qualifying which is a reasonably long time for a race but with being held up it was nothing compared to how much time was wasted. I spent a further hour arguing with the UCI but got know where. The UCI started the convocation saying that it was not their problem and that I would have to just work my way up through the ranks so that I am seeded better in the first place. Apparently if I was ranked in the top 100 then they would consider putting me through to qualifying but if that was the case I wouldn’t be following some wobbler down. It’s not like I am ranked at all yet either being a junior at his first 2 world cups. I had plenty of witnesses with a marshal being one and they just weren’t willing to look into it. My first split time was 2 seconds off of Greg Minnaar which, ok, was only the first 1/3 of the course but at the 2/3 split I was 13 seconds down on Greg. I think that explains it all without too much confusion... I was 130th 5 seconds off qualifying; not happy
It was fantastic to see Peaty come down again and win especially as he is now the best ever, beating the record with 49 times on the podium and I believe 17 times on the top step. Big respect there! Bring on fort William in 3 weeks I say!
Here are some pics;
Firstly thanks to Perry who gave me a huge contribution to the expenses of the 2 races, and thanks also to Polish Pete from Mojo for helping me set my suspension up! Thanks to Last, DMR, Rezurgence, Lifestyle Ford, 2026 distribution, Funn, Bell, Thor, KMC, Nike 6.0, Mojo suspension, and Shimano.
Sorry it didn’t go my way, this time anyway.
