News: Andorra World Cup DH Report

Gee Atherton laying it into a berm to qualify first. Colin Meagher

Go HERE for a complete gallery of images that accompany this story.

Simply over the top. The Athertons pull a hat trick: Dan Atherton took the 4X yesterday, and then Rachel and Gee both qualified first in the morning, and then both hung on for the win in the finals. Such a feat is unprecedented in Mountain Bike racing, and likely bike racing, period.

Rachel’s win was icing on an already sweet cake with Dan’s win the previous evening, but the pressure on Gee was intense.

“Oh yeah, there was loads after Rachel won, for sure,” stated Gee after the race. “But it wasn’t too unexpected. We’ve been almost there a bunch of times, so it was a load on me, but not as bad as if we’d never anticipated it. At the same time it really hasn’t sunk in.”

As for Rachel, when I asked her about her reaction, it was, “Oh F*** all! I don’t believe it! It’s madness!”

All Dan could do was grin like a fool, and state, “Unbelievable.”

But I’m getting ahead of myself… Qualifying first.

On a race day, you usually have time to get a last few “tune up” runs in during the am, and then it’s showtime. Not so much for JD Swanguen—his bike bounced off the bike rack on the lift at a lift tower and took about a 50 foot free fall. A pretty pissed off JD stomped down the lift line only to find his bike in need of a new fork and wheel—miraculously, everything else was still ok.

“My mechanics did a miracle job; pretty much the whole front end is brand new. Stoked—I qualified 5th from last with no warm up, no practice and basically a brand new bike.”

The track had evolved some horrendous ruts, and a few sections were pretty flat, so it was boiling down to who could carry speed to make it over the roots and rocks in the flatter sections, as well as pilot through the ruts in the steep toboggan sections without kissing a tree. Not so easy to do in the peanut butter like mud in the trees. Bottom line: having a mistake free run was not easy; almost everyone I questioned was like, “yeah, I went off the track for a second,” or “well I’d have been faster if I hadn’t hit that tree.” End result?

Ladies' Qualifying: Rachel Atherton first, Sabrina Jonnier second, Tracey Mosely third, Emmaline Ragot fourth, Celine Gros in fifth.

Men's Qualifying: Gee Atherton first, Sam Hill second, Fabien Barel in third, Steve Peat in fourth, and Steve Smith in fifth.

Finals: The ladies' race was fairly undramatic. Times dropped with each rider down the course, so no one person spent a lot of time in the hot seat. In the end, there was only one name different from the top qualifiers: Florian Pugin from France took third place. The rest of the top finishers were Rachel Atherton (with a dominating 8.47 second lead), Sabrina Jonnier in second, Tracey Moseley in fourth, and Emmeline Ragot in fifth. Claire Buchar took 11th, Vancouver’s Micayla Gatto took 12th, and Kathy Pruitt took 18th.

The men's event, on the other hand, was a nail-biter for sure. With Rachel Atherton taking the win in the ladies, the pressure was on for Gee to make it a clean Atherton sweep—he had the top spot qualifying already, after all, a mere 1.68 seconds ahead of Sam Hill. As the hot seat swapped hands, it got more and more tense. Sven Martin and I were shooting opposite sides of the course and all we could hear was a whole lot of French from the announcer and the occasional roar of the crowd. We were able to figure out that Minnaar had taken the hot seat from someone, just not who, and then Sam Hill had seized the hot seat from Greg, with only Gee was left. We heard the split, and it wasn’t looking good, but Gee had a rock and roll second half of the course and crossed with the crowd going nuts. Pretty obvious that Gee had taken the win (by a scant .31 seconds), but coming down the course to discover that Rachel, too, had won, making it a clean sweep for the Atherton clan was a pleasant surprise. As Dan Brown, the Animal/Commencal team manager put it: “hopefully just the first of many.”

The men’s finish (in order) was Gee, Sam, Minnaar, Peaty, and then Sam Blekinsop. Steve Smith of Vancouver Island has literally blown up this year, with a win in the US Open, and a solid 10th place here. Duncan Riffle took the next North American honors with a 29th place, then Cody Warren in 40th, Cole Bangert in 67th and Kyle Strait in 68th.

Go HERE for a complete gallery of images that accompany this story.

Cedric Gracia--no fingers on them thar brakes... Colin Meagher

The Atherton clan. Dynasty in the making? Colin Meagher