To say that Whistler\u2019s first downhill World Cup didn\u2019t go as many of us expected it to is an understatment. And for the many who hit the dirt (or tree, or rocks, or roots) over the weekend it\u2019s fair to say that wasn\u2019t in their plan either.<\/p>\n
But Whistler did deliver excitement. Huge crowds. Incredible racing. Canadians near the front. A controversial DSQ. And crashes.<\/p>\n
So many crashes.<\/p>\n
Heavy rain turned 1199 into a muddy mess during qualifying before sunshine started drying things out for Sunday\u2019s finals. The result was a fast, physical track with wildly changing grip.<\/p>\n
A rough weekend for Goldstone<\/p>\n
It might be fair to say that nobody had a more disappointing weekend than Jackson Goldstone. We all thought he was gonna win didn\u2019t we? Hometown advantage and all that. All the planets were aligned. Only they weren\u2019t. He crashed a couple times during practice and then again during Q1. And when news spread that he hadn\u2019t made the finals, everyone was gob smacked. Wait what?<\/p>\n
But he wasn\u2019t the only Canadian to eat some dirt over the weekend.<\/p>\n
Dane Jewett crashed in finals after a spectacular weekend. Johnathan Helly had a close call during practise. Tegan Cruz crashed in Q2. Finn Iles crashed in Q2. And there were probably more too.<\/p>\n
Crashing up top<\/p>\n
Finals didn\u2019t get any easier. Anna Newkirk crashed twice during her run. Lisa Baumann went down before the first split, while Eliana Hulsebosch crashed despite putting together enough of a run to eventually finish fourth.<\/p>\n
Crashing everywhere<\/p>\n
There was carnage all over the mountain. Bode Burke had a nasty ejection.<\/p>\n
Oisin O\u2019Callaghan was flying before hitting the ground. Ryan Pinkerton crashed, Antoine Pierron went down. Then there was Henri Kiefer.<\/p>\n
The German champion was just 0.6 seconds off the pace at split four before slipping a pedal before the final drop. Kiefer launched with both feet off the pedals and absolutely detonated on the landing, carrying himself across the finish line in one of the biggest crashes of the weekend. Apparently his bike actually got sixth place (too bad you need to be on the bike to place).<\/p>\n
Earlier in the day Lina Frener also crashed off the last drop.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
Injuries?<\/p>\n
Thankfully we haven\u2019t heard about too many serious injuries. French junior rider Sacha Brizin had the worst injury that we know of, puncturing a lung and losing a kidney. We wish him and all the other riders that crashed a speedy recovery.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
It was possible<\/p>\n
Valentina H\u00f6ll and Asa Vermette ultimately proved that 1199 could be tamed without hitting the dirt. They both put in near perfect runs.<\/p>\n
But Whistler had waited a long time for its first downhill World Cup. And 1199 had been waiting patiently. Let\u2019s do it again next year?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"To say that Whistler\u2019s first downhill World Cup didn\u2019t go as many of us expected it to is…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":910154,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[569],"tags":[64,63,784,43062,85],"class_list":["post-910153","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-cycling","tag-mtb-features","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/910153","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=910153"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/910153\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/910154"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=910153"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=910153"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=910153"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}