Edited Date/Time
7/7/2026 10:35am
The World Cup goes back-to-back with riders leaving La Thuile and landing in the high and dry venue of Andorra. The Pal Arinsal DH track is fast and bike-parky up top as it develops into rougher, natural terrain through the bottom half. DH race day is Saturday w/ qualis on Friday. We'll open up Fantasy when we get the quali start list and until then, here's the weather and rider entry list. Weather looks like it could be primo for race day with Thursday and Friday showers.
DH Entry List (may not reflect actual race start list)
PDF placeholder - Andoorra-entrylist.pdf
Andorra track walk video
🌦️🙏🌧️
Why is the older and more preferred track not raced anymore?
I recollect (but could be wrong) that the finish area got reworked for on hill infrastructure (i.e., a lodge or chalet) and there wasn’t enough room anymore.
damn, thats a massive bummer
commencal hq
From Charlie's video, rumors they are reworking the old track to make it usable again. It would be fucking rad, the old track was sick.
The field that the old track finished on is on private property fyi. Owner isn't interested in allowing it to be used.
Trackwalk by Fast AF:
Jackson's POV practice lap. For being first one on track after B practice in the morning, it's insane how blown the track already was. Going to be a sand pit come race day
Top 15 Timed Training results below - full list here - Aletha is 2nd-fastest woman of the day. 3 Elite Men in 2:49's.
Troy Brosnan POV
Fast AF Le Raw
Saw the comment about the course being monotonous from the Fast AF crew until the bomb holes get burned in.
Scary thought.
Mistake by YouTube auto-translation. At the end, Flo said "c'est un piste qui reste très très mono-traj' " meaning that you mainly have only one ("mono") line/trajectory and not so many alternative lines.
Kolb was leading but also slower than his winning time in TT yesterday.
All action live here https://gravitylab.live/live (well charts and graphs, obv not video footage as that would be insane)
Maybe qualifying 30th is the target for tomorrow's race if the track is that bad!
As predicted by timed training results, it's another fast and tight one in Andorra! Here's how we stand in Elite (after qualifying round one, as I type these lines): https://www.vitalmtb.com/news/news/results-andorra-downhill-world-cup-elite-qualifying.
Men's Q2 is going to be tough
Congrats Aletha, fastest woman on the hill today, both categories combined! https://www.vitalmtb.com/news/news/results-andorra-downhill-world-cup-junior-qualifying.
Valuable insights, opinions, and of course action from Charlie as usual:
Updated elite results after Q2: https://www.vitalmtb.com/news/news/results-andorra-downhill-world-cup-elite-qualifying.
Watching track vids, always end up hearing "cant win the race in this section, but you can lose it"... Which has seemingly been over-used to the point I'm not quite sure what it means. Obviously you can throw the race away anywhere, but I assume places where you 'cant' win are typically straight sections that are one line... And sections that ARE critical to winning (but not always mentioned as such?) are usually anything with a corner where exit speed is critical and potentially even changes whether or not you can make a line or gap.
What is your opinion on it? Is it a valid sound bite every weekend? Or is it as annoying as the 'climbs like a goat, descends like a mini DH' cliche of bike reviews of yore (or not so long ago depending on the reviewer).
I think it's a valid way to describe a track, like those sections in Andorra where there aren't many marginal gains to be made, in comparison to the MSA rock garden, where you can definitely win in that section. In the Andorra straight line sections, every rider who qualified is going to do the section within 0.1 of the same time gap, whereas really technical sections lead to gaps where one rider could be 2 seconds up on the entire field.
This sentiment isn't always true though. In Loudenvielle, everyone said that you just had to hold time at the top, and win the race at the bottom. Luca didn't do that. He won the race at the top, and held on at the bottom. Same thing he did in Lake Placid (though he didn't quite win). He held on in the steep tech and put in the damage in the flatter, faster sections.
Torrential rain there now. Should make the track interesting tommorow. Won’t be dusty but lots of lines washed away.
Yeah! I think it’s either sportsinterviewtalk (“both teams played hard”) or actually an indication they’re not gonna win. I’ll listen to CKilmurray on DT Podcast and he pretty much says it every race: “well ackshually…” !!! Luca won it up top, Tahnee did it in the trees, whatever. Gwin emerged back out of the flat trees, sans chain, up by four seconds!
Kilmurray talked about La Thuile: Jordan Williams did well in the whole track. I think it’s always been that way. Break it on down but at the end of the day they only stop the clock at the end of one big sector!
Note: if I were ever to hear Bruni say the race couldn’t be won in a section, I’d put money down that this is the section his whole squad has been analyzing for months lololol
I used to say this while looking at the course before a bike race. Saying it made me feel smart and tactical. Never won any of those races, though.
The only 2 things to change timing gaps are technical sections that force slow, precise changes in direction with DRASTIC feature variations like a long section of off camber roots that come out of a near 180 degree turn.
This track has ZERO.
Someone will intentionally remove their helmet peak & win. Then we're skiing on dirt again.
Also...watching Asa's qualifying run just now is terrifying. I'm so old. 20th...with a blur of a run.
i usually just look at my local jumps and say "you cant get a red bull sponsorship on any of these... but you CAN end up in the hospital"
have yet to be sponsored for riding. have ended up in the hospital multiple times...
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