2012 UCI MTB World Champs By MS Mondraker

The UCI MTB world championships 2012 of Leogang/ Austria are over and even we missed the win of the rainbow stripes we end up with a 2nd place in the women’s race and pretty good team result. But lets start at the beginning…

After a couple of days with a lot of rain and temperature drop close to 0° we were lucky for race day. The weather turned back to good and so the conditions on the track changed quiet a lot from deep and slippery to a really fast and rough piste.

After a descent timed training on Saturday where Emmeline set the fastest time for women’s and all male riders end up in the top 15 we were prepared for the race.

Emmeline came down as second last rider with some little mistakes here and there. When she came to the finish she knew that it hasn’t been a winning run and so it was when she checked on the timing board . Emmeline came in in 2nd place and there was Rachel Atherton still to come. Rachel was handicapped by a back injury and so she was not able to put a winning run together as well. The winner of the day was the 19 year-old Chaare Morgane from France- maybe the unexpected racer of this weekend even she showed up already and the one or other worldcup podium.

The boys showed a strong performance in seeding already and the boys knew what’s possible. Starting by the current UCI ranking Markus Pekoll was the first to come down of the MS boys. He is Austrian and so he was in the position of being the local hero, which puts some pressure on him. Markus had a solid run on and managed it to hop into the 2nd position of the hot seat. He sat there for a while and a few top riders haven’t been able to beat his time and in the end this brought him into 9th position.
Second last of MS-RACING to come down was Damien. He has a good but not perfect run, but in the end he finished in 6th position. Brook was the last man of MS to come down and he was on his limits, but not without mistakes, which cost too much time in the end for being on the podium- Brook ended up in 8th position.
Even we haven’t been able to win the infamous rainbow stripes we are happy with what we have reached in co-operation with our partners. One rider on the podium and 3 others in the top 10 is an awesome result and makes us one of the best teams on the circuit.

Thanks to all our sponsors and partners, who helped us during this week with special products, service and hospitality.