What a day, huge crowds, Brendan Fairclough and Jess Stone win! Real bad weather again. Basically everything you could want from a major international race day.
Quick bit of news before I get started. A certain source who liked a certain photo has said he's designed a lighter ******** frame that he will be testing out all this year to see it's breaking points, Sounds cool.
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| Jess Stone rides to the win today in Vigo. When questioned she said she didn't go out for the money, she tried not to think about that. She went as a training exercise for the South African world cup to race in the heat (shame it rained). |
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| Long pedal at the end of the track, Brendan proves that he can pedal. That or he's so quick in the upper section where the turns are. |
If you can guess the designer and the frame I will personally buy and send you a copy of Clays' new film. Leave your guesses below in the comments section. Hint - it's not who you'd expect.
The day started out the same as yesterday, 100% downpour. Only this time I was laying in a puddle in my tent (and it wasn't because of the antics from night before). Also the clocks changed through the night which meant the alarms went off an hour earlier. There where a few people confused with the times which was understandable as it wasn't really made clear what time everything happened. Anyway practice started at 09:00. I was amazed when I saw Cedric Gracia come down on the first uplift, he must have been eager. Apart from a few, not many people did more than two runs. I was thinking it was going to be like day 2 all over again. The track went quiet for a good half an hour which is when I knew qualifications were about to start, so I quickly ran up the hill to get to what used to be a super gnarly section of the track where the crowds where always huge (6 people deep the whole way down on each side). This wasn't to be the case though, there was about 40 people maximum.
Although my initial thought that they had made the track easier soon changed. They were going so much faster it was just as difficult if not more so. The slightest mistake at speed and it soon goes pear shaped. Lots of loose moments with even the top riders making some mistakes.
Before I knew it I had 5 mins to get on track to shoot the final, That gave me just enough time to set up a remote camera to get some finish line creative stuff. Even though it was mega wet (just in case I haven't mentioned that point) the crowd around the finish was fair sized thus making for an uplifting atmosphere. When the local riders strolled through they went wild. There was big expectations on fave Bernat Gaurdia as he won last year, but it wasn't to be as he just missing out on 1st place, but taking the reign of Spanish national champion.
Results:
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| Male Elite podium |
3rd Robin Walner 2:47.677
2nd Bernat Gaurdia 2:47.242
1st Brendan Fairclough 2:46.670
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| Female Elite podium |
2nd Myriam Nicole 3:23.778
1st Jess Stone 3:20.791
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| Junior podium |
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| Huge respect for Cedric taking time out of his day for the fans |
That's it, the weekend is over the race has ended. A big thanks to Pinkbike for the supports this weekend and everyone else who helped out, you know who you are.
