Mountain Bike World Cup: Athertons are Gee’d up

If the good residents of Inverness couldn’t hear the PA or thumping music from the Fort William leg of the Mountain Bike World Cup, they must have heard the sound of cow bells, zuzumas and screaming Highlanders that accompanied every rider down the hill.

Fort William is probably the most challenging of all the World Cup tracks, almost certainly the most picturesque and is undoubtedly the noisiest, and yesterday, as the sun beat down, it was at its most enthusiastic and raucous.

It helped, of course, that the crowd had someone to cheer for, with the Athertons slugging it out with the best in the world on their home turf. Yet again the first family of British mountain biking took the fight to the best of the rest, and once again it was a fight that the rest lost comprehensively. Even though the younger Atherton brother, Dan, had an uncharacteristically slow downhill run, finishing in 33rd, his absence from the top of the leaderboard hardly impaired his family’s prominence.

Sister Rachel dominated the women’s competition, finishing almost ten seconds ahead of the next fastest rider in five minutes and 15secs, while older brother Gee took a break from nude modelling for girls’ mags to record a rampaging run of 4min 43sec to finish second, just behind leader and team-mate Marc Beaumont, who also races for the Atherton-owned GT Factory Racing team.

In fact the day was something of a triumph for British riders in general, although there was disappointment for highly-rated young Borderer Ruaridh Cunningham, with the former junior world champion finishing more than ten seconds behind Beaumont in 22nd place. He is just one of 25 British riders who will be involved this afternoon as the top 80 men and top 20 women (of whom six are British) contest the second and final run but it will take a remarkable performance to force his way back into contention.

The same goes for American world No.1 and pre-race favourite, Aaron Gwin, who won the last leg of the World Cup by eight seconds but finished back in 29th place yesterday and, to a lesser extent, for last year’s winner, Greg Minaar, who finished sixth almost four seconds off the pace. The usually impressive South African lags behind the British trio of the steadily improving Beaumont, who has 18th and fourth-place finishes to his name so far this season, 2010 world champion Gee Atherton and third-placed Danny Hart, who finished second last year and has an outstanding record here.

Josh Bryceland was the next best-placed Brit back in eighth, 4.622secs off the pace.

If Team Atherton was bossing the men’s half of the competition, Gee’s sister Rachel was laying down the law to the female competitors. She has been here for the past two years and didn’t for one second look in the mood to accept a hat-trick of runners-up medals. She scorched down from the ski centre, burning over the rocky top section and putting in a time that none of her rivals came close to challenging.

By the end of the first section Atherton was almost two seconds up on second-placed Nicole Myriam of France. By the end of the second section she was over seven seconds up and, by the finish, she was 9.96sec ahead and a country mile in front of a world-class field. She was almost 25 seconds ahead of last year’s winner, Tracy Moseley, who has won five times here but finished seventh yesterday. Barring a fall, Atherton is a shoo-in for the women’s downhill.

On the subject of falls, there were plenty in the four-cross, a sprint event where four riders race on a shortened course lined with spectators. Noisy, thrilling and run on a knockout basis, it was one event the Athertons didn’t dominate, mainly because none of them entered.

The women’s crown was taken by American Melissa Buhl, while the highly-rated Czech racer Michal Prokop won the men’s final.

Next week the mountain biking circus moves to Innerleithen in the Borders, which plays host to the IXS European Downhill on Friday and Saturday.

Before it does, however, there’s the serious business for the downhillers this afternoon. As always, it will be an afternoon of drama, eyes-out speed, spectacular smashes and Athertons atop the podium.