The first round of the French Cup Downhill was held in the French ski resort of Les Orres on the 5/6th July.

Here’s a brief summary from the Subaru/Mondraker site:

Saturday’s training was much shorter and the riders focussed on making the correct set-up changes on the bikes and finalising the lines for the race. The weather had stayed hot and dry for 2 days but the forecast was for heavy storms on Sunday so tyre choice was going to be a big factor!

Sunday morning quickly changed from bright blue skies at 7am to a heavy thunderstorm at 9am, which stopped the ski lift from running due to the lightning. The track was soaked but by 10am the sun was out again and drying the track.

Before the final, there were 2 more large storms, and the track had deteriorated, so the tyre choice changed again and this time it was full mud tyres.
This pace was a little slower than the morning but the conditions much worse.

Final results:

1. PASCAL Mickael 400 pts
2. BAREL Fabien 340 pts
3. THIRION Rémi 290 pts
4. SPAGNOLO Damien 258 pts
5. PEDEMANAUD Fabien 256 pts

Paskal wins French Cup DH 1