Cunningham and Cernilogar win in Chatel

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The fifth round of the iXS European Downhill Cup is in the books: Last weekend, 230 riders from 19 different nations spent an exciting weekend in Châtel, France. In the end, Ruaridh Cunningham and Zarja Cernilogar succeeded and managed to collect some more points for their overall standings.

Châtel is a little village near the Swiss border and belongs to one of the largest mountain bike areas in Europe. Portes du Soleil is regarded as one of the best regions as far as the number of courses and trails is concerned. In 2008, Châtel played host to the iXS European Cup for the first time. With its 1500 meters, it belongs to the rather short tracks of the series, but with approximately 300 meters there is still a lot of vertical to play with.

On Friday, the riders had their first training sessions, while Ruaridh Cunningham (Unior Tools Team) introduced them to the track in the course check. Unfortunately, it started raining in the afternoon and continued the whole night through, which made the track slippery and extremely hard to ride.

Even Saturday morning's sunshine was not strong enough to dry off the track and so everyone was waiting for a nerve-racking seeding run. In the elite women's category, Miriam Ruchti (SC-Intense) set the best time, after she had failed to win in Châtel in the past five years. Joel Connell (SC-Intense) dominated the elite men's category and not even Ziga Pandur (Unior Tools Team) went faster than Connell, who temporarily sat atop the men's overall standings.

On Sunday morning, the rain had finally turned the track into a chute for every rider. The course was wet, slippery and far from easy, but even when all riders and bikes were covered in mud, they all still enjoyed the day and had a lot of fun.

The finals on Sunday were opened by the masters category, which was dominated by Stencel Rostislav (Bikeplac Racing), followed by Paolo Alleva (Team Scout/Nukeproof) and Neil White (Fanatik Bike Co. USA).

In the U17 category, Silas Grandy (Moto Club Faro) failed to defend his overall lead due to a three-second gap and a best time that was set by Loris Revelli (Argentina Bikes) already in the seeding run. On Sunday he even dropped down to fifth, while Revelli won with a time of 2:53.631 ahead of Thibault Laly (Cycleworks GT bicycle) and Bryan Pfeiffer (Valloire Galibier Vtt).

The fastest woman in the elite women's category was Zarja Cernilogar (Blackthorn GT), who succeeded over her strongest competitor Ruchti. The podium was rounded out by Ruchti in second and Carina Cappellari (Suspension Center) in third place. Cernilogar extended her lead over second place Jana Bártová (Bikeplac Racing) in the overall standings and already can be seen as the winner of the series in her category.

In the elite men's category, Jack Moir (Yeti Fox Shox) was one of the first riders down the hill, as he had a flat in the seeding run. He stayed in the hot seat for quite some time, watching one rider after the other coming down the hill, but nobody was able to take his lead. Even last year's Swiss champ Lars Peyer (SC-Intense) could not dislodge him from his seat.

The only one who went faster than Moir was Cunningham with a best time of 2:47.763. Both the last participants Ziga Pandur and Joel Connell had some problems and did not reach this time. In the end, Cunningham won the race, followed by Moir and Lars Peyer.

The temporary overall standings are led by Joe Connell (369), Miran Vauh (366) and Ziga Pandur (360), followed by Marcus Klausmann (316) and Manuel Gruber (313).

The last race of the iXS European Downhill Cup will be another highlight at the end of the season, when the participants will fight for the last points that are still on offer in Maribor, Slovenia.

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