And everyone else…

The sport’s greats were present throughout the day’s stories. Remi Thirion absent due to a sprained wrist sustained on Friday; Gee Atherton surviving what could have been a grim fate down the famous Wall in practice; Greg Minnaar low-siding in a fast left hander in qualifying; Steve Peat still schooling the majority of young talents and comfortably into the finals.

2015 Lourdes winner Aaron Gwin fell foul to the greasy conditions in the most unlikely of places – away from the savagery of rocks and steep and instead at the entry to the track’s wide-open mid-section. He was already a couple of seconds down on the World Champion though and couldn’t match his speed anywhere on track. Gwin scrambled a top-ten.

Bryceland, Atherton, Smith and Brosnan took positions 2-5 in that order; all previous World Cup winners with a chance of hassling he who leadeth in tomorrow’s finals. They’ve got a fair deficit to make up though.

Tahnée Seagrave’s talent is always clear when she is on two wheels, however, a mid-run crash should have put her out of contention… should have, but she blitzed the rest of her run and even with said incident raced into first place, a full three seconds ahead of World Champion Rachel Atherton in second place.

Manon Carpenter solidified a British 1-2-3. Emelie Siegenthaler and Morgane Charre rounded out the top five.

Did Atherton take a cruiser? Unlikely – but Seagrave’s momentum down the hill will certainly have shaken her rivals up ready for a fierce battle in Sunday’s finals.

View full women’s qualifying results here

None of this means the race is called though. In a week of up-and-down weather affecting such an equally hit-or-miss course, Sunday’s finals are all to pray for.