This weekend the Worldcup circus rolled into Champery, a new venue for the worldcup and home of arguably one of the hardest tracks in the world. Steep and tight only just begins to describe this track riding it clean in the dry took incredible skill and nerves of steel to negotiate the huge jumps, drops and off-camber roots. A true test for the world's best, be you a world champion or a worldcup newbie this track took no prisoners.



Joe Smith absolutley pinned his seeding run placing 12th and Matt seeded 20th. Jack Geoghegan hurt his back in practice on the unforgiving track (if you fell off you ended up falling a good few meters to land somewhere further down the mountain) and had to sit out the rest of the weekend.



Torrential rain hit the track at around 4.00pm leaving the course a near impossible mud chute quite literally, there was no grip anywhere, like riding on ice! Those who came down in the dry where sitting pretty whilst the top seeded riders had to slide there way down the track; did anyone manage to stay on for the complete duration? Stories of crashes and close calls where swapped back and forth in the pits.



Italian team rider Marco Millivinti qualified 31st and took a well deserved 21st place in the final with an unlucky crash on the big berms at the bottom of the course.



Riders came down coated from head to foot in mud. In some of the worst conditions and with a number of crashes and a mechanical Matt took 70th (Matt was in fact up on the leaders by almost 10 seconds at the split) and Joe 80th. Hats off to them both I know I could never ride anything like that even in the dry!

Images Courtesy of:

www.southerndownhill.com
Rob Jones - www.canadiancyclist.com
Paul Thomas - www.descent-world.co.uk