Fort William men's final result
Minnaar loses it on the top split
4:33pm, Jun 06th 2010
Gee Atherton has managed to face his demons and finally win at Fort William. It's been a while since Gee's hit the top spot at a World Cup, not since the Atherton's trifecta at Andorra in 08, and you can bet that he'll have been pleased (to say the least!) to have done so in front of his home crowd.
Hot favourite Minnaar was beated into third place by an ever-improving Cameron Cole. Greg's bottom splits were good enough for the win, if he'd equalled Gee at the top of the track.
Cameron finished just 0.48s down on Gee with a couple of big whips thrown down the motorway section... who knows how much difference that could have made?! As his graph shows, this is by far his best performance so far, here's hoping he can pull it off again this season!
Gwin added to his rapidly growing collection of silverware with a 4th World Cup podium in only his 3rd year of racing DH. He was up on Gee at both the first and the second splits, but couldn't match the man from Wales on the pedally lower part of the track. The rest of this year's courses are going to be more technical though, and Aaron is certainly one to watch!
- 1) Gee - 4:35.70
- 2) Cole - 4:36.18
- 3) Minnaar - 4:36.91
- 4) Gwin - 4:37.71
- 5) Mick - 4:37.75
- 6) Blenki - 4:37.81
- 7) Camellini - 4:40.93
- 8) Shaun O'Connor - 4:41.54
- 9) Beer - 4:41.97
- 10) Matti - 4:42.08
- 11) Beaumont - 4:42.20
- 12) Danny Hart - 4:42.77
- 13) Joe Smith - 4:42.89
- 14) Leov - 4:43.08
- 15) Needles - 4:43.18
Troy Brosnan, despite only being 16 and in his second-ever World Cup was the top Junior again, 18 seconds adrift of Gee's time in 57th place.
Some confusion arose at prize-giving, with Minnaar and Cole in the wrong spots on the podium. They had to be called up to re-do it (without 4th & 5th) so there might be some confusing photos out there later - photoshop time!
