Mont Saint Anne World Cup Qualifying

For the 25th consecutive year Mont Sainte Anne just outside of Quebec City is hosting the Mountain Bike World Cup. Only a few hours from Vermont you can watch the best riders in the world on what is considered to be one of the hardest tracks. Today was qualifying for the downhill and the results were quite surprising. A massive deluge of rain hit moments before men’s qualifying began. The men start their qualification runs in order of World Cup points, so the first man on track was Aaron Gwin who fell on the first turn and snapped his crank. He can ride without a tire, he can ride without a chain, but without a crank he walked back up and rode down in the gondola relying on his protected status to give him a spot in finals tomorrow.

As the deluge continued and rivers began to run down the course, Loic Bruni of France set off setting atop time at split one, but crashing just after.

Greg Minnaar took a safe run down the mountain into 14th place. Troy Brosnan however was not one to play it safe and finished in 4:25.013 seconds he qualified in first place and will be the last man down tomorrow afternoon.

Second place qualifier with a 4:28.047 was Danny Hart. We have been waiting ever since his phenomenal World Championship run in Champery for him to finally win a World Cup. Could tomorrow be the day?

In 3rd place 5.315 seconds back we have Colombia’s Marcelo Gutierrez Villegas. His results get better day by day and he seems to be turning into a World Cup podium regular.

Scurrying to 4th place was Josh “Ratboy” Bryceland with a time 7.806 seconds behind Brosnan.

In 5th place at 8.808 behind is another up and comer Connor Fearon.

On the Women’s side Rachel Atherton’s domination continued with a time of 4:52.148. Her run was not perfect, but perfect wasn’t needed today. When Rachel is healthy it’s a stretch for anyone to beat her.

In a familiar 2nd place was Emmeline Ragot with a gap of 4.919 seconds, a big gap to be sure, but Emmeline will give it everything tomorrow to add another win from Mont Sainte Anne.

The Rainbow Jersey curse seems to be continuing for Manon Carpenter. She has been plagued with crashes and mechanicals and had an uncharacteristically slow run to 3rd at 11.543 seconds back. Hopefully she has a clean fast run tomorrow.

Tahnee Seagrave finished 14 seconds back with a 5:07.087.

Coming back from injury is Myriam Nicole. She broke her shoulder at the 2nd round in Fort William and while her body feels fine she is not yet ready to commit to the biggest jumps. She still had a worthy 5:08.028.

Be sure to watch the finals tomorrow on Redbull.tv with the mixed qualifying it should be very interesting.