It's been a nice weekend for us kiwi mtbers! Yesterday we had riders on both the DH podiums, with Justien Leov (5th)and Scarlet Hagan (2nd!!!) both taking there first ever World Cup podiums. Then today I finally ended my 3 year WC Podium drought, finishing 4th.
This race was always one of my focus's for this year, being at such high altitude I knew I would have a fairly good chance. In training I must say I did become a little nervous though, as the down hill was super rough, and my confidence was not the highest. But from the start I knew I was going to have a good day. I was able to follow Christophe Sauser (Susi) up the long first long climb, with a group of 6 just behind. I then surprised myself by descending faster then Susi and took the lead of the race coming through after the first lap.
The next climb I tried to follow Susi, but it wasn't going to happen. I decided to pace myself and was caught at the top of the climb by Geoff Kabush and Erwin Baker. Geoff was descending super fast, so I followed him for a while, but then banged my rear wheel hard into a stone and heard that terrible hissing sound of air and 'Stans liquid' escaping through the tire. Finally the tire sealed up, but I was down to around 10psi. So, for the first time I made use of the new 'tech assistance' rule, which allows wheel changes in specified tech zones. I still had around 3km of descending before the zone, so I lost a bit of time, but then was able to put my spare wheel in place.
Now in 6th place, I knew I had to be careful. We still had half the race left, and it would still be easy to blow if I attacked too hard. I had Jeremy Horgan Kobelski at 20sec and Fredric Kessiakoff at 1min, so I knew I had a good chance for podium. My legs were stiff after the stop, but soon they felt good again and I started reeling them in. I passed JHK near the top, and then over the top I caught Fredrik, who had clearly blown a big gasket. By the final lap the gaps were pretty big, so I just rode tempo and kept it together.
This podium is a great relief. It's like I've had every problem in the book during the past few years, and this is a great step to put that all behind me.


PS. should also mention that Vox finished 6th and JK 9th in the DH, which means we had 5 riders with top 10's this weekend :)