Minnaar takes narrow victory in downhill world championships

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The men's race for the downhill world title in Leogang, Austria, had a dozen strong contenders, and South Africa's Greg Minnaar took a that victory came down to the wire.  Gee Atherton (Great Britain) was second, ahead of Steve Smith (Canada).

Australia's Bryn Atkinson set the first sub-3:30 time, with nearly 50 riders to go. Sam Dale (Great Britain) quickly took off three-tenths of a second and held the hot seat for 20 riders before he was replaced by Florent Payet (France), with a drop of two seconds in the lead time.

Australian Mick Hannah took the leading time below 3:24 with 10 riders to go, but was immediately replaced by Canada's Steve Smith, who was bumped by Gee Atherton (Great Britain) with two riders left to finish. Minnaar came in next, half a second ahead of Atherton, but everyone knew that the final rider, American Aaron Gwin, could quite easily upset the standings. Gwin has won an incredible nine World Cups in 13 races over the past two seasons, so everyone was waiting to see what he could do.

However, it became apparent early in his run that Gwin was suffering mechanical problems, eventually finishing a distant 83rd, after his front and rear brakes, in the words of the team manager, "exploded". Minnaar jumped to his feet from the hot seat as he was mobbed by well wishers, ecstatic to win his second world title.

"It's been nine years and this run it, was tough," said Minnaar. "I had a lot of pressure today, I was super nervous. To be honest, I tried to nail the top section and just after the bridge I lost a lot of speed, I had to pedal hard. But I held it together, in a way same as in the Pietermaritzburg World Cup earlier this season. I couldn't believe I crossed the line in first."

"I am a bit bummed for Gwinny, he seems to have had a mechanical. I am not sure what happened. It is not exactly the best way for me to win, or how I'd like to win, but we are all out there trying our best. We all have mechanicals from time to time, that's part of racing."

Third place finisher Smith said, "Everybody comes to world champs to win. I didn't win, but if I am not on top, I'd rather be on the podium. I've had silver and bronze, so hopefully the next one will be gold. The track was awesome – quite grippy as the sun was out all day. I can’t believe the crowd; I have been here twice now for World Cups and they didn’t even have half the crowd we’ve had today. There were people all the way down, it was full of people, so it made the race good."

Race notes

- Steve Peat (Great Britain) was participating in his 20th world championship in a row.  He was recognized for his achievement with a special jersey from the UCI.  After quite a fast split time, he was out of the title race because of an unfortunate crash on a berm. 

- Austrian rider Markus Pekoll rode to his first world championship top ten placing in his career (ninth).

- Justin Leov (New Zealand) was competing in the final race of his career. "For sure I was chasing a top 10 here. The course had dried up really well and I was looking forward to running at speed and getting a great result. Unfortunately it wasn’t to be, and I'll have to settle for 21st, but it has been an amazing run from Kaprun (Austria) in 2002, to these World Champs in Austria 10 years later."

Full Results