The 4th round of the UCI Mountain Bike World Cup was record breaking for women’s riding.
Leogang, Austria hosted the 4th round of the UCI World Cup, and welcomed heavy rain over the weekend making for messy qualifying rounds. The athletes battled their way through sticky mud, slippery rocks and around tight hairpin corners.
The 2.6km track featured new sections from last year’s run, which caught many riders out when navigating their way through.
Returning to the race scene from injury, and sitting out at Fort Bill last weekend, Tahnée Seagrave stormed qualifiers securing herself 2nd place.
Rachel took top spot in qualifiers with Manon Carpenter in 3rd, Miranda Miller in 4th and in 5th, Tracey Hannah.
Finals
The skies cleared up for the finals on Sunday and kicking off the Elite’s was the women’s category.
Pocket rocket rider, Tracey Hannah is small and fierce, and she’s been on fire this season. Having a solid run down, the sketchy track, Tracey secured herself a time of 4:20.883.
Canadian born racer, Miranda Miller, broke both her wrists last year, but she’s come back and progressing in the top 5 female riders. With determination and drive, Miller secures herself a finish time of 4:19.306.
Having recovered from her tumble in Fort Bill, Manon Carpenter looked strong in the qualifying rounds, but her final run got off to a slow start. Gaining speed in the rocks and roots sections, Manon rode into the pits with a time of 4:21.349.
Tahnée Seagrave was the penultimate rider to make her way down the trail. With her aggressive riding style, Tahnée’s hunger for the top spot was evident. Showing a lot of physical strength on the features and keeping true on the jumps, Tahnée finishes with the time 4:14.764.
The last rider down was reigning World Cup Champion, Rachel Atherton. Making it look effortless, the caclulating rider took some direct and more technical lines to power herself through the line with a time of 4:09.394.
- Rachel Atherton – 4:09.394
- Tahnée Seagrave – 4:14.764
- Miranda Miller – 4:19.306
- Tracey Hannah – 4:20.883
- Manon Carpenter – 4:21.349
With the crowd roaring in celebration for Rachel Atherton who became the first women to achieve 10 consecutive World Cup wins. Her win in Leogang made is an overall win of 30 World Cup rounds.
The 5th round of the UCI Mountain Bike World Cup will take place in Lenzerheide, July 9th – 10th
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