The 2009 world championship was held on the week of September 1st-6th The week of the Worlds ran from Wednesday to Sunday with different parts on different days.
On Wednesday Downhillers had the opportunity to walk the track to get a feel for their lines. Thursday was timed practice, opposed to the usual qualifying runs each rider had to nominate a practice run as their fastest time; this would then determine the order of the race.Thursday was practice; Friday was more practice and 4X race day. Australia’s Jared Graves has dominated this year’s fourcross competition, to add to this he won the World Champs too, (he also has the World Cup title rapped up going in to the final round in October) followed by Romani Saladini, Jakub Riha, Rafael Alvarez.
In the downhill things were much more interesting. Each team had their different ways of improving their own bikes , for instance some riders elected single clamp forks, this saved weight but reduced strength.
In the juniors there was tight racing going on between Brook macdonald, Danny Hart,shaun Oconnor and Rgys willemse. But it was Kiwi Brook Macdonald who took the win, with Shaun 2nd, Danny 3rd and Rhys 4th.
Mick Hannah of Australia was the first big name racer on the course and set a time of 2:31.02 which was then the quickest time of the day. Then Peaty hit the track he blitzed through the top section he was faster in both the first and second split, but not by much. Many thought that this could be Micks day after all. But in a bittersweet sort of way Peaty crossed the line 0.69 seconds faster than Hannah, although Hannah was out of contention, Peaty was one step closer to his dream. This was a familiar situation for Peaty, it was déjà vu of last year when Peaty was leading with three men to go. This time there were also three to go, namely Sam Hill, Greg Minaar and Gee Atherton. Sam Hill was next, Sam had been training here during the off season so he could pose a major threat to peaty dream. As Sam flew down the track Peaty was looking more and more nervous. Sam was up in the first split dead even on the second, so could he keep it together sadly he lacked the pace in the third section to be placed two spots below Mick Hannah with Frenchmen Fabien Barel in between.
Minaar was on course next, being on the same bike and team as Peaty this would be an interesting contest. Minaar was slightly up in the first split but slightly down in the second. After clearly showing he wasn’t going to let his team mate take the world title without a fight. Despite his best efforts Greg Minaar crossed the line a mere 0.05 seconds behind Peaty.
So we come to an almost identical situation as last year, Steve Peat leading and Gee Atherton being last man down and the only one who could stop Peaty’s dream. He did stop it last year could he do it again.
Steve peat is now the 2009 Downhill World Champion. Gee Atherton could not stop Peaty, Gee ended up placed 6th. What I said before holds true, this World Championship was the bitter sweet race, although no Australian won in the downhill, Steve Peat’s career became complete, one World Championship, seventeen World Cup wins and he has been racing for 15 years.
So there we have it, world champs of 2009
No comments:
Post a Comment