UCI Mountain Bike World Cup

Watch how Rachel Atherton won her fifth UCI MTB World Championship title in Lenzerheide, Switzerland.There is perhaps no better place for MTB racing than the Swiss Alps. Lenzerheide hosts the UCI Mountain Bike World Cup tour for the third time, with both DH and XCO races contested in the Men's and Women's divisions. The steep, short and intense track at the 2018 UCI DH world Championships in Lenzerheide, Switzerland, packed everything a Worlds track needs into three minutes, with plenty of roots, rocks and turns. A perfect day in the mountains greeted the fans who'd turned out in their droves to watch the races for the coveted world champion's rainbow jersey and place in mountain bike history. Going into the top five riders, Myriam Nicole was set to strengthen the French presence on the podium. On the comeback from a back injury sustained at the World Cup round in Val di Sole, Italy, Nicole knew what it would take to win on this track, having won there in 2017. Next up was British hopeful Tahnée Seagrave. Coming off the back of a World Cup season littered with wins, she had all the motivation to aim for victory. An aggressive start saw her up on the timing splits, but riding noticeably more carefully towards the end of the course, she was back on Nicole's times at Split 4. However, in a final bid for glory she managed to claw back that time and went into the lead just 0.69 seconds. Extending her blistering pace all the way to the finish, Atherton crossed the line nearly 10 seconds ahead of her competition to claim her fifth World Championships Gold medal and firmly cement her name in the history books.

The Mercedes Benz UCI DH MTB World Cup reached its conclusion in La Bresse, France in less than ideal conditions. The rain that so affected qualifying the day before returned for finals, making the course super slick in places. This was no bad thing, with the track running faster than in qualifying as a result. For the Elite Women, the overall title still needed to be decided, while in the Elite Men's contest there was still the question of who would finish second to World Cup champion Amaury Pierron to settle, with up to five riders in contention for that spot. The weather started to clear up as the session went on, but this appeared to be at the disadvantage to the riders now coming down, as the muddy seemed to get a bit stickier. Times were slowing considerably, with huge amounts of time being lost by riders in the steep section in the middle of the course, where Maes had been incredibly fast.

Take a deep breath… the finals are upon us. Some titles remain up for grabs, champions-elect are yet to be crowned, but for the rest of the pros, it’s their last opportunity to claim a scalp or two before the UCI World Championships. They're officially calling last orders in the Last Chance Saloon and the stage is perfectly set for a classic! La Bresse seems to have a propensity for producing dramatic racing and historically significant results. In 2011, Aaron Gwin locked up the first of his back-to-back titles here with a third place. It sealed him the title for Trek Factory Racing with a round to spare. It was the first time an American had won the overall crown.

This was it. Mont-Sainte-Anne, AKA The Big One. Over the course of its life the Mercedes-Benz UCI World Cup has seen races all over the globe, created two-wheeled heroes and produced some of the most spectacular sport the planet has ever seen. But one thing has remained constant… the terror that is Mont-Sainte-Anne.One of the big drawbacks of mountain bike racing is that tracks are always, quite understandably, being tweaked and rejigged which, although great for racing, means that we don’t have any consistent stripes on which to measure one generation against the next. Mont-Sainte-Anne is that course that can be judged over the generations. The track has morphed over the years but it’s a standing monument to severity in both XCO and DH guises.Add to this the Quebec area’s propensity for, shall we say, ‘dampness’ and you have a recipe for one of the biggest and most entertaining race weekends of the year.

This was it. Mont-Sainte-Anne, AKA The Big One. Over the course of its life the Mercedes-Benz UCI World Cup has seen races all over the globe, created two-wheeled heroes and produced some of the most spectacular sport the planet has ever seen. But one thing has remained constant… the terror that is Mont-Sainte-Anne.One of the big drawbacks of mountain bike racing is that tracks are always, quite understandably, being tweaked and rejigged which, although great for racing, means that we don’t have any consistent stripes on which to measure one generation against the next. Mont-Sainte-Anne is that course that can be judged over the generations. The track has morphed over the years but it’s a standing monument to severity in both XCO and DH guises.Add to this the Quebec area’s propensity for, shall we say, ‘dampness’ and you have a recipe for one of the biggest and most entertaining race weekends of the year.