Another podium for Marine Cabirou (3rd), Dylan Levesque 6th ! riders in the fight for best season results so far.
Loudenvielle, France, 3rd September. A new location and a fresh track for Round 5 of the UCI Downhill World Cup. The energy and excitement for this new track could be felt everywhere in the days leading up to the race. With a great Pit area full of food stands and entertainment for the public, this race had a great atmosphere from the beginning!
There were some schedule changes right away due to forecasted weather that meant track walk quickly turned into practice day and it was all on from there. The riders were really enjoying the challenge of a new and very technical track that created plenty of creative line options.
Qualifying was brought forward a day to be held late Friday 25th to try avoid the potential bad weather on Saturday. Marine Cabirou started out strong and qualified into 3rd. Dylan Levesque, had a slow start to the racing with a P35, a bit off his normal pace. While Dean Lucas and Gonzalo Bandeira put in solid runs to get into the Semi-finals with P52 and P54. Brendan Fairclough didn’t match that with a run a bit out of a race pace.
Unfortunately due to overnight thunderstorms making the track very tricky and posing potential safety issues for the Juniors, the decision was made to cancel the Junior race on Saturday and the results would be decided by the Qualifying! For our riders it meant a day of recovery before hopefully beating the weather and racing on Sunday!
On Sunday there were some nervous faces as the Women headed up to practice at 8:30am, not knowing how difficult the track would be to ride. Luckily there had been many trail crew (including our own Florent Payet) who had been digging and fixing the track on Saturday to try and ensure we could have a safe and successful Elite race!
Once riders were able to put in some practice laps the eagerness and anticipation of race day returned, as the track was slippery but most certainly rideable and looks to provide some seriously exciting racing!
Semi-finals were tough for the team, it was difficult to find speed on a track that had changed a lot during the week. Marine had a conservative run and finished in P7.
Unfortunately Gonzalo had a crash and went off track so did not make it through. Dean struggled a little to find the extra seconds needed to break into the top 30 and get through to finals, finishing semis with a P44. Dylan Levesque found his speed he had been missing in Qualifying and managed a P6 in Semi’s which was a great start to his race day!
With a point to prove, that she always one of the fastest in the world, Marine Cabirou stepped up the pace in her race run and pushed hard to achieve a great result with P3 and not far from the winning speed! (best time on the last two splits)
Dylan Levesque is always fast when he is on his bike, he kills the first split getting overall best time, then gives all of his physical strength to manage the second half of this steep technical track. He finally show his abilities in his finals run and he was able put a really amazing time to reach P6, his best result of his career so far, so close to a podium! We are all so happy for him to reach this new level in his racing!
The fifth 2023 World Cup is now in the books, the team is already setup and ready to fight again this weekend in France in Les Gets… Follow us, there gonna be some fresh things to look at…
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