Just finished watching the DH World Championships live on Freecaster, one word: DRAMA.
Josh Bryceland won in Junior Men 7.5 ahead of Sam Dale. Rachel Atherton took the win in Elite Women, by 12 seconds ahead of Sabrina Jonnier of France!
Then the mens, there had been a lot of talk about Fabien Barrel being very fast but intentionally seeding in 33rd place, it was suspected he thought it would rain later on. He came down what was a very steep and technical track to place 4 seconds ahead of the previous fastest rider. Peaty came down with +3 on Barrel, was this finally going to be his chance to win a much deserved World Championship having been 2nd three times before?
As Sam Hill, the favourite, came down he was flying, -5 seconds on the first split, then -6 on the split before the flat out motorway section. It seemed he’d easily beat Steve by a large margin, then on the last major corner his front wheel sides out and goes down, the man who never crashes had gone down!, losing his 6 second lead and the win! He got back on and crossed the line still only 0.5 of second slower than Steve. The next real competition for Steve was Greg Minear, but he was 2 seconds slower than Peaty.

At this point a Great Britain victory was assured with only Gee Atherton left on the hill. He’d seeded 1st, but Steve was 10 seconds up on his seeding time, he had a great run, finishing 2 seconds up on Steve, making it a double Atherton victory. Peaty had got his fourth 2nd place at a World Championships, bad news for the man that said 1st is all that matters to him.

A somewhat bitter sweet result, not only as Peaty didn’t get a World Championship win, but also Sam was on track to be 3 seconds faster than Gee’s wining time when he crashed. But that DH racing.
Is this the closest Steve will ever get to his elusive World Championship win? Will Sam’s crash erode his confidence and chances of winning races? and how much are the Athertons going to dominate the sport in the future?

The 4X is on later: http://freecaster.com/live/
Dan Atherton has broken his shoulder, so won’t be racing, removing the chance of an Atherton triple World Championship win.

Course length : 2250 m / 1.40 Mile

DH Men’s Seeding Results: (Full)
1. ATHERTON Gee GBR 3:24.81 Average Speed : 39.55 Kmh / 24.57 Mph
2. MINNAAR Greg RSA 3:28.52 +3.71
3. LEOV Justin NZL 3:29.95 +5.14
4. HILL Samuel AUS 3:32.32 +7.51
5. BLENKINSOP Samuel NZL 3:35.72 +10.91

DH Women’s Seeding Results: (Full)
1. ATHERTON Rachel GBR 4:05.72 Average Speed : 32.96 Kmh / 20.48 Mph
2. RAGOT Emmeline FRA 4:16.14 +10.42
3. JONNIER Sabrina FRA 4:22.16 +16.44

DH Men’s Final Results: (Full)
1. ATHERTON Gee GBR 3:12.12 Average Speed : 42.16 Kmh / 26.20 Mph
2. PEAT Steve GBR 3:14.74 +2.62
3. HILL Samuel AUS 3:15.27 +3.15
4. MINNAAR Greg RSA 3:17.34 +5.22
5. BAREL Fabien FRA 3:17.92 +5.80
6. LEOV Justin NZL 3:17.96 +5.84
7. PASCAL Mickael FRA 3:20.12 +8.00
8. CAMELLINI Julien FRA 3:21.31 +9.19
9. PEDEMANAUD Fabien FRA 3:21.46 +9.34
10. OULEGO MORENO Ivan ESP 3:26.86 + 14.74
…
14. FAIRCLOUGH Brendan GBR 3:29.06 + 16.94
26. CATHRO Ben GBR 3:33.74 + 21.62

DH Women’s Final Results: (Full)
1. ATHERTON Rachel GBR 3:03.60 54.02 3:49.92 Average Speed : 35.23 Kmh / 21.89 Mph
2. JONNIER Sabrina FRA 4:01.91 + 11.99
3. RAGOT Emmeline FRA 4:07.03 + 17.11
…
6. MOSELEY Tracy GBR 4:12.30 + 22.38

UCI All Results

Check out www.mtbcut.tv now for live DH, in pretty good quality too.

WOW Gee Atherton beat Sam Hill!, by 0.31sec. Rachel won the women’s DH, and Dan won the 4x apparently, so the Athertons are doing pretty well. If you missed it, it’ll probably be on www.mtbcut.tv later.