Martin Maes Briefly led the race on this one section of Stage 8! The biggest race in EWS history saw drama unfold at every turn. The lead swapped, leaders dropped out, punctures, crashes, stages wins and consistency prevailed. With Quarq Race Intelligence have a look at how the race played out for the top 5 Men and Women. For comparison the flat blue line is the eventual race winner. But especially in the Men's, Greg Callaghan wasn't always up front.
With race winner Greg Callaghan represented as the flat blue line, it's incredible to see that at only 5 points during the 2 day race he actually led over the eventual top 5. With Jesse Melamed dropping out after SP7 due to a wheel catastrophe, the race placed the focus on Damien Oton and Martin Maes for day 2. In fact at the half way point on Stage 8, Maes had the race lead and even almost lost second place following a crash on the final Stage 9. The puncture for Jared Graves on Stage 3 took him out of the running for a top 3 and it with a strengthening Sam Hill, the battle for 4th remaind hot until the end. Although Oton crashed on Stage 6, he actually led out the race straight afterwards only to lose time to Maes and Callaghan in the final two stages. Congratuations to everyone for racing through one of the hardest fought and won EWS races in history.
In the Women's race, Ravanel-MTB led from Stage 1 until the end in a dominant display of strength and skill. Isabeau started strong on the physical Stage 1 and gained time again during the savage Stage 3 which shows Cecile can't relax too much this year. The podium newcomer Noga Korem raced inredibly well start to finish but was kept honest by a consistent Ines Thoma in fourth. Canadian rider Miranda Miller lost a lot of time on the steep and short Stage 4 but kept it clean through day 2 to finish a respectable 5th.
MENTIONS: @EnduroWorldSeries
May the trail point down to greet you.
May the wind be always at your back.
May the sun shine warm upon your face;
the rain fall soft upon your loam.
And while you ride in EWS,
may this be your only kind of flat.
Not to mention, is it really about power output or momentum maintenance? Chainless Gwin data might have something to say about that.
I guess if we are going to recognize Oton's "putting down the power", we should recognize the other's putting down the flow. We, on pinkbike have greater respect for flow anyways
You can see in stage 3, Sam Hill was gaining time (going really fast) before maybe he got a crash, and then going really fast again before maybe got a crash again. Data like these shows which part of the stages where you should back it off a little or you played it too safe.