Atherton flies to Mont-Sainte-Anne downhill World Cup win

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The last woman down the mountain, Rachel Atherton (GT Factory Racing), took victory in the elite women's downhill World Cup in Mont-Sainte-Anne on Sunday. Myriam Nicole (Commencal/Riding Addiction) and Emmeline Ragot (MS Mondraker Team) rounded out the top three. Nicole was just 1.842 seconds behind Atherton. Ragot was another half second back.

"I'm happy," said Atherton after her win. "I'm relieved because everyone is so fast and strong and they are a little bit crazy, like they don't mind if they crash. I'm scared to crash, and I think I was lucky."

"I wasn't risking everything, and you have to risk everything to win. One more minute of track, and I probably would have been second. It always surprises me how hard it is to race after four days of riding - Mont-Sainte-Anne is an extra day. It's tough."

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Micayla Gatto set the first fast time of the day as the 10th rider down the hill. The Canadian finished in 4:59.435, a time that put her in the hot seat and would be good enough for fifth on the day.

"I couldn't be happier. I hit all of my lines. The only thing I could have done to get a better time was to have pedalled a little bit more," said Gatto. "I'm ecstatic. This is my first World Cup podium ever, and I'm absolutely over the moon."

She is looking forward to racing the Canadian national championships on the same course in July. "It's good that our Canadian champs will be on the same course. I think it will be an advantage to those of us who raced here this weekend."

Gatto's time held for another half dozen riders. That's when Emilie Siegenthaler (Scott11) set the bar higher with a 4:58.973. The Swiss rider was delighted with her performance.

"This is my best result ever so of course I'm satisfied," she said. "I was back at the first split, and my run wasn't the best. I could have done a bit better, but I'm really stoked with it."

Siegenthaler thought she made her run on the technical part. She was extra motivated after her teammate Floriane Pugin had to sit out the finals following a crash in practice in which she hit her head and was left dizzy. "I wanted to get revenge on the track that destroyed my teammate's face," said Siegenthaler.

The next rider up, Tracey Hannah (Hutchinson United Ride), did not set a new best time. "I made a mistake in the top woods, but it was pretty good," said Hannah. "It was dry and fast and I felt good. It was a very tough course, and I'm looking forward to next weekend in Windham. What makes this course tough is the length and the amount of technical bits in it."

World champion Emmeline Ragot (MS Mondraker) set a new best time with a 4:52.357. She was going well enough that she might have won the race, but a mechanical put an end to her chances.

"I broke my chainguard, so I couldn't pedal any more after that in the bottom part," said Ragot. "It's the kind of thing that happens and you can't do anything about it. I had thought about it during training: 'If you break something, just keep going, don't brake and keep it smooth.'" She did just that and still managed to finish third overall on the day.

Myriam Nicole (Commencal / Riding Addiction) bumped Ragot out of the hotseat with a 4:51.811. "I was happy to come first when I came down, but I had done two mistakes on the way down," she said. "I almost crashed and lost quite a bit of time, but second is not bad."

The only woman to beat Nicole was Atherton, who said her knowledge of the track helped her immensely.

"It surprises you how much you ride the track from memory because it is so fast," said Atherton. "I can't see the rocks and react fast enough, so a lot of it is memory. You hit holes and stuff that are new now and you just blast through them. It's wild."

"I felt tired out there. This track is so full on and 100 percent, and when you do get to a straight, you just want to sit down and relax. People were like 'come on pedal' and I was like 'I'm trying to relax'." Atherton had a particularly good top section and didn't want to throw it away down low by messing up.

The British gravity star was very motivated to be back in top form. "I think I can safely say that this is one of the first races in a long time that I attacked. I was very determined and very focused. It's the first time in awhile that I felt like I was really in the zone."

Canada placed two riders in the top 10 on home turf: Gatto in fifth and Casey Brown in sixth. The best American was Jill Kintner (Team Norco International) in eighth.

"My run was pretty good. I don't know why my time wasn't better. I guess I was just braking in spots where I could have been off the brakes," said Kintner. " It's so fast that you are taking in as much as you can. The course was real grippy - it was good. I should have pushed a little harder."

Ragot leads the World Cup standings with 740 points to runner-up Atherton's 700 points. Nicole is in third with 641 points.

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