Iron Horse's Sam Hill takes World Cup lead!

Hill takes win and World Cup lead


Steve Peat (Santa Cruz Syndicate) was hoping to repeat his immensely popular win from last year, he had to settle for fourth; hampered by a broken knuckle. Australian Sam Hill took the win, and the overall lead in the men's World Cup, with crowd favorite Cedric Gracia finishing second.

Hill wasn't the fastest in qualifying, running second to Greg Minnaar (Team G-Cross Honda) by three-quarters of a second. But in the final Minnaar was less than a second ahead of his qualifying time, good for third, while Hill knocked four seconds off his seeding run time. World champion Fabien Barel (Kona Les Gets) was also expected to do well, after qualifying third, but crashed coming out of a jump halfway down the course, and lost valuable seconds, pushing him back to seventh.

"I really like this course" said Hill, "it's the most physically and mentally challenging course on the World Cup circuit. I'm actually not surprised to win here, because I always feel good on this course."

Minnaar put his relatively minor improvement over qualifying down to not being prepared for the changing conditions at the top of the course. "I was not really aware of how much windier it had gotten at the top of the course, so it blew me around quite a bit and I definitely lost some time there."

Steve Peat broke a knuckle on his right hand while traveling back from a downhill event in Lisbon two weekends earlier. He was in an altercation with a man who attacked him, and broke his knuckle. "I don't have as much strength in the hand, and I can't pull on the brake lever very well. I have to keep it taped, and it meant that I wasn't able to train as much because it is so painful."

Results
Samuel Hill (Aus) Monster/Iron Horse/Mad Catz 4.25.332
Cédric Gracia (Fra) Commencal 4.26.59

by By Rob Jones in Fort William