World Cup # 5 Bromont - Canada

Unfortunately the rain followed us from Mont Ste Anne to Bromont and we were in store for another tough track in the mud. We had a couple of days to ride in Bromont before the racing began and I took the chance to get in some more time on my downhill bike. There a loads of downhill trails on the hill, either really easy or super gnarly, nothing much in between ! The last world cup race they had here in 1999 was from what I can remember one of the hardest tracks I have ridden. It was technical from top to bottom with huge rock slab sections. This years track had the same features with lots of rock slab sections, but this time they were covered in mud !

It was a pretty short track with a steep technical top half and then a pretty flat simple bottom section. It was a tough track to get right and in a few sections it really was hit or miss whether you made it down on your bike or not !!

Just like Mont Ste Anne the weather dried up for race day but the damage had been done and the track was muddy. Qualifying went well for me as I had an ok run with no major mistakes. I qualified in 2nd spot behind Emmeline Ragot. Just as I set off up the chairlift for my final run there was a weather announcement that they were expecting thunderstorms and high winds, so they were asking everyone to go up the lift quickly ! When we arrived at the top we could see a massive black cloud in the distance, but fortunately it didn’t progress towards us too fast. We did however get a small amount of rain as we were warming up, just enough to make the track an extra bit slippery ! I had a pretty good top section in the final but then lost some valuable speed in the last flat turns. I ended up improving my qualifying time by 3 secs, but it was only good enough for 3rd. Rachel Atherton took the win with a 3.14, Sabrina Jonnier in 2nd on 3.16 and I was 3rd on a 3.17. Some good close racing on a pretty tough race track. It’s back home now for a week and then back out to Canada for Cranworx at Whistler.