We woke up to another cracker of a day, with the sun shining and the clouds hiding you would not of guessed that last night it rained heavily for a few hours, on the lift up the hill before practice it would appear looking at the track you wouldn’t know either, with the track looking just as dry as it did yesterday. Inside the woods was more damp than it was by the end of yesterday, but the open areas were almost as we left them. As the riders bega to flow down the hill we realized that times today were going to be very tight and very quick. Qualifying would be a challenge for everyone involved. It would appear that lots of riders felt the same way, pushing very hard, with lots of crashes in early practice, many over the bars, with a few serious incidents.
As practice for the A group wrapped up we were astounded at the speed some of the guys were going, Aaron Gwin was especially impressive through the rougher sections, looking good as a local favorite to be on the podium tomorrow.
The juniors started rolling down the hill and Luca shaw looked quick, as always. He took the hot seat, and never left it, yet again, qualifying on top. Something to note is that Aussie Junior Max Warshawsky placed 8th and that makes him the fastest Australian Junior today.
This had the women coming down next, with Manon coming down first as usual, however she didn’t sit on the top spot for very long, with country-woman Rachel Atherton coming down to knock her from the top spot and claim the last run down for the women tomorrow.
This just left the Elite men to come down, and did they come down! We were absolutely blown away at the speed these guys are riding, they were all so fast it was extremely hard to distinguish a faster rider from where we sat, we had to listen to the echos of the announcer to get any indicator of who was riding fastest. Josh Bryceland took the las run honours, followed very closely by Aaron Gwin and Neko Mullaly, two local USA Boys.
Qualifying results are as follows:
Junior Men:
1. Luca Shaw
2. Thomas Estaque
3. Ferran Jorba Prats
4. Loris Vergier
5. Taylor Vernon
Elite Women:
1. A�Rachel Atheron
2. Emmeline Ragot
3. Tracey Hannah
4.A� Manon Carpenter
5. Jill Kitner
Elite Men
1. Josh Bryceland
2. Aaron Gwin
3. Neko Mullaly
4. Troy Brosnan
5. Loic Bruni
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