Lourdes had all the drama, excitement and speed of a world cup round that will go down in the history books. Here are our hand-plucked highlights of a stunning weekend.

Loic Bruni’s run (until he crashed)

Coming into the race everything seemed perfect for Loic Bruni. He was in the rainbow jersey, on the bike that won the overall series last year and he would be cheered on by a fanatical French crowd.

Bruni’s run was blisteringly quick and, despite a serious moment that spat him off his pedals after the second road gap, he had a 2.3 second advantage over Gwin at the fourth split. Unfortunately, with the finish line in sight, Bruni washed out and threw away yet another golden opportunity to take his first World Cup win. It made for one of the most exciting World Cup finishes in recent years though and proved (once again) that Bruni has the raw pace to challenge Gwin’s dominance.

More than anything it showed Bruni is a true champion as he still made time for every one of his fans despite the huge disappointment. We have no doubt Bruni will pick himself back up and be pushing the limits once again Down Under in Cairns.

Our British girls

You can’t get more dominant than a 1-2-3 finish and that’s exactly what the Brit girls pulled off this weekend in Lourdes. No other country had a look-in as Rachel Atherton, Tahnee Seagrave and Manon Carpenter locked out the top spots in qualifying and the finals.

Sure, we loved God Save the Queen ringing out on French soil but maybe even more glorious was Rachel being so stoked on winning she dropped a cheeky f-bomb during her interview.