Online Exclusive: Fort William World Cup DH Results

The top portion of the long Fort Williams course Colin Meagher

A gallery of images from this event can be found HERE.

Oh man, what a day for the Santa Cruz Syndicate! Not since the days of Volvo Cannondale has there been such a powerhouse of a team, able to put one or more bodies on the podium at any given race. And today was their day: Minnaar, Peaty, and Rennie—all on the podium!

For Minnaar, who rode here at the ’07 Worlds like a man possessed—even with his banged up shoulder—it was a sweet victory. He qualified first for the day, and then came through as the last racer down to take the win by 3.17 seconds over Gee Atherton.

But I’m getting a bit ahead of myself. I guess I should back up a few and start with the morning’s qualifiers.

The ladies were first, and disaster struck for the first lady on course, Animal Commencal’s Rachel Atherton. She took a spill just before entering the trees, which held up and forced a restart for Fionn Griffiths and a few other racers. Rachel finished her qualifying run with a time of 11:17.23. It was a non-issue for her, though, as her place in the overall World Cup guarantees her a spot in the final, regardless of whether or not she crashes, but it put a 20 minute delay on the men’s start. The top five qualifiers were Tracey Mosely in 5:26.53, Sabrina Jonnier back by 5.17 seconds, Emmeline Ragot back by 9.89 seconds, Floriann Pugin back by 13.88, and Celine Gros, 17.42 off the pace.

The men’s race started notably absent a couple of faces: Matti Lehikoinen took a nasty spill onto a steel grate yesterday, and was cut up quite badly. A specialist in Innsbruck will determine if he can race worlds or not. A rough blow for Matti, and a rough start to his year on MS Intense. Steve Smith of Cove, the 17-year-old giant slayer , is also out with a hyper-extended left knee. How long he’ll be out is anybody’s guess.

Onto the qualies. The men poured it on fast and furious. By far the fastest coming through my little section of the woods was Chris Kovarik. The man was on fire. But not as fast overall as he looked, with a qualifying time that placed him 8th. Peaty was also looking fast, as was Gee Atherton and Sam Hill. No big surprise that both were top qualifiers. The man to beat, though, heading into the finals was Greg Minnaar, edging out Gee Atherton by a third of a second. Kind of funny, actually, Greg looked so smooth he really didn’t appear to be going fast at all. I mean he looked fast, but not that fast. The top five qualifiers were Minnaar, Gee, Hill, Peaty, and Barel.

A quick break and it was down to business: the finals.

The women’s top three were a paint by numbers affair: Mosely, Jonnier, and a recovered Rachel Atherton. Those 3 are not going to be easy to dislodge from the top 3 steps of the podium this year. Fourth was MS Intense’s Mio Suemasa, and then KHS’ Melissa Buhl of the good ol' US of A. Good to see an American on the podium here, for sure; especially Melissa. Kathy Pruitt is starting to get back on form with a tenth place finnish.

In the men’s final, it was Syndicate’s Josh Bryceland in the hot seat for a bit, before being dislodged by Mondraker Subaru’s Florent Payet. Then the times started dropping and the heat was on for someone to come out on top—that someone eventually being Minnaar. But it was awesome to see Rennie back in the hunt as well; he held the hot seat at the end through Fabien Barel, only to be dislodged by teammate Steve Peat, in turn knocked down by Gee and then Gee to be put into second by Greg. Awesome finish, with riders getting knocked out of the hot seat one by one.

As for Rennie? After two sub par races—Maribor and Andorra…

“Oh man, it was good to be back up there,” was Rennie’s comment. “It’s been a rough couple of races for me, so it’s awesome to be back on form.”

And for Minnaar and the Syndicate, it looks like a dynasty in the making. The Syndicate is shaping up to be untouchable.

A gallery of images from this event can be found HERE.

Minnaar - back on top and joined by his Syndicate brethren Colin Meagher