Oh the madness that is World Champs; it gets us every time. It seemed like a simple enough race as the riders boarded the fleet of 4x4s with their mechanics one last time. As soon as they found themselves alone in the heat of the jungle, mysterious things went down that flip-turned both the rider and the racing on its head; a race so topsy-turvy as to rival the infamous Hafjell 2014.
In a shocking turn of events, following violent crashes from Tahnée Seagrave and the hometown favourite, Tracey Hannah, Miranda Miller became the new female World Champion, the first Canadian since 1990 to take gold. In the end, she would do so by only one-tenth of a second, as in a remarkable mix-up the backup timing system had to be called upon to correct an extremely inaccurate reading for the true silver medalist, Myriam Nicole. After a season of mostly heart-ache, Matt Walker bested the junior men's field, leading out fellow countryman Joe Breedan and Max Hartenstern of Germany, while French youngster, Melanie Chappaz, not satisfied with the World Cup season overall, rode to junior women's gold.
The elite men's race was also loaded up with an overgenerous helping of surprises, and although last year's Cairns winner managed to repeat the performance, there were thrills by the dozen beginning with the first rider down, as Sam Hill careered into the finish area with a time to threaten the best of them. Around 30 riders later the local boy and of course veteran of the WC podium, Mick Hannah, laid down an absolutely red hot bid for the rainbow jersey and at 5.3 seconds up at the time, it appeared an insurmountable challenge to dethrone him. In the end, Loïc Bruni would do it by an absolute wafer; 0.34 seconds and he apologized for it, well aware that no one had wanted it more. That's racing, the time's the time and gold is gold.
// JUNIOR MEN //
// JUNIOR WOMEN //
//ELITE WOMEN //
// ELITE MEN //
MENTIONS: @natedh9 /
@davetrumpore
Miranda ran a great race, but she's not quite in the same league this year.
Thanks for bringing us the best damn pics season after season. None of us would get to see the locations, raw emotion, and excitement you guys bring us every race.
Its an insane amount of work lugging gear, hiking, editing and not sleeping.
We all appreciate it more than you know.
You make this old man happy.
Next time you're in the Bay Area, I'm buying.
So gutted for Greg..he deserves better treatment from luck..
how many people gonna be rushing out to buy Minnars signature tyre?
Also Tracey actually knocked herself out?! And then laid down that sort of a run afterwards?!! She is actually insane... Go girl!
A couple of Raw Clips -
youtu.be/6YkaMZVNe54
youtu.be/5eeYUKiLAyk
That pic of Brosnan at the end...you don't win, you carry your own fork home.
Nice seeing Thomson seatposts on the day's fastest bike...you want problem-free performance and micro-level adjusting, can't do better than Thomson.
3 silver medals then - ouch!
Also, pretty much every other individual sport I can think of Running(all types), Swimming, Diving, Gymnastics...etc have a one day world championship.......