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Specialized boys cooking. Surely having The Alien has helped a lot with that program. What a guy to have in your corner.
Kinda funny that Vouilloz, Peaty, Minnaar and Barel are still battling at the World Cup in a different way.
MoiMoiTV and WynTV are the same thing with the two of them together the whole time. It’s great for banter but…
Jonty Williamson makes it 3 in a row, winning by 7.577 seconds.
2nd and 3rd: Boatwright / Hickman
Rosa Zierl, Women Junior overall leader is shown as DNS for finals.
Sunny skies in Leogang for the Juniors. Top of the course has dried out quite a bit but Aletha Ostgaard said afterward that it's a bit sticky/peanut buttery lower down.
Women Junior results: Austrian / Norco team rider Lina Frener gets the win by 3.4 seconds over Aletha with Jensen in 3rd.
Pretty sure Aletha takes over the points lead through 3 races. Women's Juniors seems to be turning into what men's Juniors was like last year. Very exciting to see.
Junior results: https://www.vitalmtb.com/news/news/results-leogang-downhill-world-cup-junior-finals.
Junior standings top 5 after 3 races:
Elite Men Top 10 after 3 races:
Looks like it. He was wearing it on his jersey
My god, Vali.... just incredible.
Two Austrian women make the home crowd happy, both winning by more than 3 seconds.
Elite Women's standings after 3 races:
Full results from the elite races: https://www.vitalmtb.com/news/news/results-leogang-downhill-world-cup-elite-finals.
Did anybody fire up the Ride Companion's watch along with Warner on the mic?
Full Junior Men's race replay (only one up so far)
Nah it’s dumb as hell.
if they want to have qualifying be such a determining factor in the series they need to pony up and film it. It won’t happen cause all they have ever done is cut budget from production since the beginning. They also need to fix format like points for q2. And they should strongly consider protection for top riders even if they did film it.
Dh is best as a one run winner takes all event anyways. Qualifying should only be to remove the folk who aren’t fast enough to get a good result on race day. There is probably 50+ men and 20+ women on well funded teams. Another few that privateer or are on small teams that are truly competitive as well.
But if you are going to have qualifying essentially be a pre race in a race it needs to be seen and well covered by eso/wbd. Teams and local organizers are investing way too much for it not to be.
Congrats to Finn. If a fast frenchie doesn’t win a round this year that would be a quite a story. They have been so dominant since 2018.
I fully agree with all these points.
they’ve added significant steps (and costs) to the “one run to win it all” thing and they should show us. We should be seeing it.
I tried to but they were way behind (40s-1min) Tiz's stream for me and I couldn't match it (when you pause it on Tiz and hit play it jumps again to live)
I hope it worked for others!!
Hottake,
The new Q1 and Q2 formats are great and I much prefer it over rider protected status as its probably the most fair way to narrow the field down. Does it mean some really popular riders lose out? Yep. Does it also mean that seasonal consistency is more rewarded in WC overall standing points? Also yes.
Seems odd to have both protected riders AND riders trying to qualify all in one group. It's either we lock the field to the same 30 riders for each race or everyone needs to qualify for finals.
No offense to riders like Danny Hart (and I fully understand all the heat I'm about to bring out for instance) who have kinda floundered in the post protected era, but past success shouldn't mean you're locked into future racing.
Completely agree. Being protected because of past success feels a little too much like participation trophies to me. No thanks.
Keep the pressure to perform on everyone. There are way more than 30 men who can compete on any given day, and that’s what makes it so good right now. Like I said before, the cream will still rise to the top, and the best riders will be there at the end of the season.
But I do agree it would be nice to actually see the qualy runs though.
I did for the men’s. Took a moment to get it sync’d with Flo but was a fun way to watch. Was a bit loose so wasn’t exactly play by play kinda commentary. Watched women’s the normal way. I’m not in the Ric hate fan club so enjoyed both
Highlights and full junior race replays:
Elite Men Highlights
Elite Women Highlights
Full Junior Men Replay
Full Junior Women Replay
in between Max's woods section whip outta nowhere and Anna's SHRALP up at the top... this may have been one of the steeziest world cups in a long, long time. I mean throw in that massive whip jump that took Asa out (i think) and the Sleeper Shreddit is gonna be OTHERWORLDLY for this one
I don’t think the new format is sustainable but it’s exciting. To watch. Which we can’t.
If they’re going to set the sport ablaze I think they should at least let us watch lol
It's in the weirdest place ever. Full broadcast of juniors on youtube. Decent highlights of elites right after the race on youtube.
It's so utterly close to showing the entire race, the only thing you're really gatekeeping is the full live broadcast of elites... But for the average viewer that makes the price kinda dodgy. But I hardly want them to think that means they should gatekeep MORE content.
I just feel like more and more platforms are playing things live on youtube. And with ads I don't see why they shouldn't be a viable revenue stream, if quite small. I guess the only way to look at it is they don't even care that DH and enduro exist. They want XC fans to buy the service for other things. As a gateway.
But that would mean, if they actually see things that way, that they could afford to put DH live on youtube... If it's not the main course of the MTBing meal for them. It's just such an awkward halfway place. They've done well with the junior broadcast, but obviously gatekept the elite broadcast. One step forward, two steps back?
Is any of the XC fully live on youtube? Like U23? or no?
https://youtu.be/yre1f1lJ4N4?si=3Pf4XAQK3afhxnwV&t=739 this one gave me a 👀
uhhh Ric maybe gettin a little TOO comfortable on the couch over there...
Doesn’t help that WBD seem to have alien concepts of worth and of being cool. Shit like “oh hey let’s finish this great movie and then of course shelve it so we can get a tax break” is psychopathic behavior. Having that in the room isn’t helping!
Vali's winning run.
Got this out quick
Am I the only one annoyed by how they pronounce Adidas 😂
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