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| DH, 4X World Cup Round 4
- Mont St-Anne |
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MOSELEY SETTLES FOR SILVER IN MONTE-STE-ANNE,
QUEBEC.
DOWNHILL ELITE WOMEN
Despite Monte-Ste-Anne being one of her favorite venues, Tracy Moseley
of the Kona Les Gets Factory Team had to settle for the Silver medal
at this event with the Gold going to Sabrina Jonnier of France.
Moseley was happy with her result but knew there were spots on the
course where she made mistakes and could have made the competition
for the gold much tighter. “I had a couple of mistakes that
cost me time. I went into the S-Berms with too much speed and had
to brake and lost some time there.”
A strong 2nd place finish added to her string of three straight
world cup victories keeps the overall leaders jersey squarely on
Moseley’s shoulders. She has a good lead in the points race
for the overall jersey but with two races to go knows it will be
a fight to the end. Since Moseley won in Brazil last year she is
remaining quitely confident she can do so again and maintain a comfortable
points lead. She views Jonnier, the current world champion, as her
main threat to winning her first overall World Cup title.
DOWNHILL & 4X ELITE MEN
With current World Champion Fabien Barel still recovering from an
injury to his arm it was up to fellow racer Kamil Tatarkovic to
do his best to hold up the Kona Les Gets side of things. Tatarkovic
whose main specialty is the 4X did his best but was only able to
pull off 53rd Place. He fared better in the 4X event but it still
wasn’t what he had hoped for and finished 19th.
CROSS COUNTRY ELITE MEN
The Kona Les Gets cross country squad had a decent outing for their
first world cup of the year. With the year so far spent concentrating
on the NORBA Nationals the team was very interested to see how they
stacked up against the worlds best.
Barry Wicks once again led the team with his best ever world cup
finish placing 25th. Barry was happy with his ride for the most
part. “I felt like I had a little left at the end of the race.
Since I was in an unfamiliar position, passing people I normally
compete with, I had a hard time gauging my output. But I know now
I can compete at this level and will find ways to improve.”
Ryan Trebon is still coming back from mono and is having a hard
time keeping the fitness rolling for the full two hours and change
required to be competitive in the cross country events. His physicians
have told him he should expect at least six months before consistent
top level performance he is used to will return. Trebon finished
50th the last rider to finish on the lead lap.
Neal Kindree was pleased with his result of 35th at this his first
World Cup event despite in his words “being slaughtered on
the start loop......I seem to have a diesel engine when everyone
else has nitrous oxide gas.” As a result he got caught behind
many riders on the single track and had to run, push and fight hard
to get this result.
Kris Sneddon’s poor luck continued with an untimely flat that
took him out of contention in the race just as his legs were starting
to feel good. He ended up in 54th place.
Tracy Moseley Report:
Mont Ste Anne was the location of my first ever world cup back in
1997 so it is always great to come back and race there. Last year
the course returned to it’s full length starting at the top
pf the mountain and taking in all of the great natural features
that the hill has to offer. This year I heard that there were some
changes and they had been using a digger to make the changes to
the track. I was concerned as the best thing about this track is
that it is all natural. However the changes they made were not too
bad. We lost one technical wood section which had been cleared and
made wide open, but we also had some additional berms out in the
open which made the track even faster in places ! It was going to
be a tough race as it was so fast and long that it would be hard
to really stay focused for the entire track.
Having walked the track on Wednesday in 30 degree heat and a bone
dry track, it then proceeded to pour with rain for most of Thursday’s
practice. It was not very inspiring to go and ride in the mud but
once I was out there I had so much fun slipping down the trail in
all sorts of speedway style slides around the turns. It was raining
so hard that all the rocks were being cleaned by the water so they
were pretty grippy ! The forecast was supposed to be good for the
rest of the weekend so I did not worry too much about getting fast
in the mud, I just had fun and learnt the course.
Friday was a dry and the track was beginning to dry by the end of
the day. I was feeling pretty good and did a couple of practice
runs with Marc Beaumont and Brendan Fairclough just to see how fast
you could go down the track !!! It is always good to try and follow
those fast guys and try and hang on for as long as possible.
By race day the sun was out and the track was really dry, I was
back on dry tyres and it was getting faster and faster ! I had a
pretty good qualifying run, with just one big mistake. On such a
long track it was going to be very hard to have a clean run. I ended
up with a time of 5.30 which gave me the win in the qualifier by
8 secs over Sabrina Jonnier. I was really happy to get another valuable
50 points for the overall and was confident that I could repeat
that ride in the final.
I set off strong for the final and rode the top section really well,
good enough I found out after to be 4 seconds up at the split. I
then made a mistake trying to go inside in a turn and ending up
riding over the berm and hugging the tape. I didn’t lose much
time but lost a bit of concentration for the next section. I then
rode pretty safe just to make sure I put in a good result. I came
to the finish and my mistake and caution had taken away the advantage
I had and I ended up 2nd, 2 secs behind race winner Sabrina Jonnier.
I was pretty annoyed with myself as I felt like I had just given
away the win having been so far up at the intermediate. However
I think Sabrina rode a very strong bottom section and I paid for
it by not being aggressive enough at the finish. 2nd place is still
good for my consistency this year and I just need to make sure I
can keep up the pace and attack for the whole course next weekend.
Results:
1st Sabrina Jonnier (FRA) – 5.25
2nd Tracy Moseley (GBR) – 5.27
3rd Marielle Saner (SUI) – 5.33
4th Rachel Atherton (GBR) – 5.38
5th Emmeline Ragot (FRA) – 5.40
This means that I still retain the leaders jersey wit 2 rounds to
go with a lead of 113 points.
I am now travelling to Brazil which is turning in to a bit of a
nightmare as we were removed from our flight out of Canada last
night after the front wheel was damaged on pushing back from the
stand. We then spent a short night in a hotel in Montreal and I
am now sat in Toronto for 10 hours waiting for a flight to Brazil
via Argentina !!! Not the most direct routing, but hopefully I will
make it in time to defend my series lead on Sunday !
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