Val di Sole World Cup

  Yesterday I raced the World Cup finals in Val di Sole, Italy. The weather was fantastic all weekend and the venue was really cool. I had a great start to the weekend riding with Aaron for most of Thursday practice and having a ton of fun. After the first day, the holes, roots and rocks came out and the track became very difficult to race. I felt like I could ride each section pinned, but when I tried to link them all together I started to make mistakes. This seemed to be the case for everyone as the track continued to get rougher through the weekend. I had a crash in the quali which I was disappointed with, but I was 16th at the split which showed I was on pace and could put in a good result in the final. Saturday we had a day between quali and race to practice. I found some new lines and felt like it was all coming together. Sunday was a rough day for me. First run down the hill I had a big over the bars and hit my head pretty hard. My vision was blurred and I can hardly remember making my way down the rest of the track and getting back to the team pits. I was planning to do another run before the final, but with the state I was in, I was forced to rest. I got myself as ready as I could be, but was still feeling under the weather before the start. It was already hard to see through the shadows on that track and after hitting my head it became a lot worse.  I stared off the run pretty well with solid first and second splits, then had another crash towards the bottom. I was happy with the way I was able to get myself from injury to the start line in a few hours time, and if I could have held on to the finnish i'm sure it would have been a good result. It was a hard day for me, but thats how racing goes and I keep on learning. That brought my final World Cup ranking to 33 for the year. I was aiming for a lower number, but It was a solid result for my first season. I will be in Chatel, France for the next week preparing for the World Championships.

Race results:

1 Aaron Gwin USA 3.10.356
2 Danny Hart GBR 3.11.588
3 Gee Atherton GBR 3.14.470
4 Troy Brosnan AUS 3.15.773
5 Cameron Cole NZL 3.16.529
56 Neko Mulally USA 3.35.640

NM