Slovenia Cup final to serve as World Cup final rehearsal

The Slovenian National Series Finals at Maribor, to be held August 25-26 will serve as a UCI category one test event for the upcoming finale of the 2007 Nissan UCI Mountain Bike World Cup Finals on September 15-16.

Top Slovenian mountain bike riders will compete on Maribor Pohorje mountain in National Series cross country and downhill finals, but they'll be joined by some international competition as some take advantage of the only chance to test the tracks prior to the World Cup.

On Saturday, cross country riders will race the all-new 4.5 km lap with 150m elevation gain. Women start at 11:00 and men at 13:00.

On Sunday, downhillers will face the 3.4 km course with a 450m drop in elevation. The top part of the course has not changed much since the 2002 World Cup race while the bottom part (following the notorious rocky section) will be completely new to bring riders to a new finish area. Finals start at 14:00.

All three World Cup events will finish at the end of the Èop ski run under the Pohorje gondola. Organizers reported that most of the four cross track is in place but racing on it will have to wait until mid-September. For more information, visit www.pohorje.org.