Pietermaritzburg World Cup Round 1 Downhill Finals

The finals of the World Cup round 1 in Pietermaritzburg, South Africa has been run and won in what can only be described as a brutal, bizzare and strangely enjoyable track to watch as a spectator, for the simple fact that i didn't have to pedal a 17kg downhill bike on a flat and at times uphill section of track for a full minute!!!!..There were some competitors who got to the bottom and spewed, some got off there bikes and with wobbling legs looked like they had been in a boxing ring and had been knocked out!!..it was that brutal!
Starting with the women, Fionn grithiths held on to the hot seat until current World champion and veteran Tracey Moseley used all here experience and saved herself for the pedalling section and took massive chunks of time out of Griffiths to take over the hot seat and the win, in all,the womens race was very closely fought between the top seven, which for the women is unusual, but it bodes well for a great year!
Womens Elite:
1-Tracey Moseley
2-Fionn Griffiths
3-Emelline Ragot
4-Sabrine Jonnier
5-Floriane Pugin

The Elite men then took centre stage, and there were a lot of expectations that it would be close and fast, it didn't disappoint, Jared Graves, after backing up from his 4x win, took over the hot seat with a blistering time which all but gaurenteed him a top 20 result, as it stood it was better, Troy Brosnan came down and came within a whisker of knocking over Graves with a stunning ride, considering that it was turning out to be the big strong pedallers who looked to have a massive advantage, but Brosnan showed that his rainbow stripes were not a fluke, his time sealed his win in the juniors, thats right, he is still a junior, Blue Mountains legend( they all are!!), Bryn Atkinson came down with a supersonic time but not enough to dislodge Steve Peat out of the hot seat.
The big guns then began to make there way down the hill, Sam Hill coming down with a very fluid time but the big pedal made it near impossible to get a win, but 8th place is pretty good for this track, then the big surprise came when Aron Gwin came down and knocked Peaty out of the hot seat with a time that destroyed Peaty by 7 seconds, this caused a massive shockwave, one by one the big boys came down and couldn't dislodge Gwin, until all hope rested on Mick Hannah, as top qualifier it was expected that he would challenge Gwin, but alas, Hannah had a horrific accident up the top of the course, while not sure what happened, it looked like his stem had snapped at very high speed, he was limping down the course but he looked to be o.k.
So it was a shock win to Aron Gwin, the first american to win since Shaun Palmer many years ago!
Congratulations to all the Aussies on a good showing, especially on a track that suited xc riders or road riders!
Mens Elite:
1-Aron Gwin
2-Greg Minnaar
3-Gee Atherton
4-Fabien Barel
5-Steve Peat
6-Steve Smith
7-Marc Beaumont
8-Sam Hill
9-Nick Beer
10-Josh Bryceland
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
11-Bryn Atkinson
13-Jared Graves
23-Troy Brosnan*(Junior)
31-Shaun O'Connor
39-Mitchell Delfs
46-Josh Button