Events: '08 Bromont WC DH Results.

Brendan Fairclough sorting out his last lines before the start of qualifying. Colin Meagher

A greasy Bromont track keeps the pros on their toes and let the mud specialists shine.

An extra day of dry helped minimize muddy conditions, but the Bromont was greasy enough to challenge even the most experiences pros. In the end, Rachel Atherton remained dominant while Sam Hill used the opportunity to show off his mud-riding skills.

Thankfully, the weather held off, so the track had one more day to dry out. Racers were putting in final practice runs at 8am, making final suspension tweaks, tire selections, and final line choices in those "iffy" sections. Peaty looked damn smooth, as did Sam Hill, and Minnaar. Gee had a nasty wreck in the upper stair-step rock garden--"rattled my cage right proper"--but was unscathed.

Going into qualifiers, it looked as if the course had greased up a bit. As evidenced by more than one pro bouncing off trees, rocks, or dirt. Rather than letting it all hang out, the key to making the finals meant playing it really safe. This course may be short, but it's got some claws; and flatting out or wrecking out means no happy ending.

Qualifying:
The ladies had the run of the course first. Rachel Atherton was first on course, and had a bit of a "dodgy" time of it.

"I rode like hell, to be honest", said Rachel afterwards, "I always ride like hell in the wet, and the course didn't dry out quite as much as I'd hoped it would."

She still managed to qualify third, 6.29 seconds behind top qualifier Emmeline Ragot, who pretty much owned the course (qualifying in 3:15.4 seconds), 1.6 seconds back was Tracey Moseley. Sabrina Jonnier qualified fourth, and Mio Suemasa was the fifth fastest.

Rachel Atherton doing her best to scare her pants brown in qualifying. Colin Meagher