Throwback Thursday: Mick Hannah's World Cup Win in Vigo 2006

Normally a rider will take a few races to find their feet after swapping teams but for Mick Hannah on his new Cannondale Judge on Cut Racing in 2006, he was on pace right away to claim the biggest win of his career.

Vigo is a short, sharp Spanish track that debuted on the World Cup circuit in 2005. Riders were aiming for a 2:20 for a chance at the win so any mistake on the blown-out Spanish dust is terminal and that led to some interesting results throughout the years.

Mick must have been confident coming into the race in 2006 as he podiumed the year before finishing fourth on a Haro and it didn't take him long to establish himself as one of the fastest on track once again. After a hard crash on day 1 practice, he bounced back to win qualifying by 0.6 ahead of Steve Peat. In the video above you can see he predicts he will knock 1.5 seconds off in finals to take the win and then he did exactly that to lead home an Aussie 1-2 ahead of Nathan Rennie. Steve Peat finished third with a dislocated finger but would recover to take the Lisbon downtown race just a week later.

Mick told Bike Magic after the race, "I felt great all weekend. Everything fell into place for qualifying and I was pumped to race. During my race run I hit all the corners fluid and perfect. The course was quite technical, but the Judge handled it smooth".

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