My theory about the clouds coming in to repeat what happened in Vigo and Champery is truly blown out of the water today, as it is the hottest day of the week. Most of the fast boys do two practice runs, cruising the first one, pinning the second. Matti Lehikoinen looks hellishly fast in the mornings practice, team mate Minnaar also looks flat out. Its rarely you will see Greg flat out on practice runs, he seems to cruise sections, or section parts of the track.

A visit to the Honda truck and a chat with Martin Whitley about the race team and the history of mountainbiking is a bit of an eye opener. He has the result of every World Cup ever raced. He realised a few years ago that the UCI were going to pull all of this race information off their website, so he took it upon himself to keep all of this information for himself. It would seem that even the UCI have a problem remembering the past.

Steve wins qualifying over Sam. Sam is not taking his fast lines he had been taking during the weeks practice. Some of the turns leading into his lines have gotton blown out. He is back on the standard fast lines, not his usual Sam ‘drift’ or ‘insane’ lines, although the few I did see him were probably not the only different ones he was on. I’m sure there were a few more up those white stripy sleeves for his race run.

The women begin to come down the mountain. Kiwi Scarlet Hagen slams down hard just seconds from the finish line. The race is held up for half an hour as she is taken to hospital. She has broken her shoulder, and seems happy as Larry later on when we see her walking back to her apartment in a sling. Probably a lot of painkillers and a good attitude.

Interestingly, since World Cup racing has started here, from the first race here in 1993 to 2006, only eight women have claimed victory. Sabrina wraps it up over Tracey and the rest of the field, making this her fourth win in Mont Sainte Anne, beating some of the men on the way to the top step of the podium (she would have been top 60 in the men’s race). Upon her arrival to the top step, she downs her bottle of champagne, Tracey Hannah’s and Tracey Moseley’s. Then downs the team overall champagne also. She staggered off the podium looking quite happy.

Marc Beaumont held the hot seat for quite a while and eventually ends up in eighth spot. Greg Minnaar’s injury plus some bad luck on his run, when he popped his shoulder out on the last rock section near the bottom of the course. He rides sitting down for a few seconds and pops it back in, then races down to go fastest when he gets to the bottom.

Then there were two…Sam Hill and Steve Peat, the so-called ‘pinner’ and ‘pedaller’. This track has had only a handful of winners in its long history. My money was on Sam for the win simply because of his sheer determination, but deep down I thought Steve was going to do it. Sam came through and went fastest and that was it. Steve arrived at the split fastest but arrived late at the finish line and went third.

Hill admitted later to not really having a great run, as did Steve. Sam was surprised that Steve didn’t go fastest at the end of the day, but Steve knew that Sam had it in him to take the win. It seems to be the case of who wants it the most, and it seems to be Sam Hill at the moment. It appears that Sam is the ultimate rider on the circuit at the moment. He seems to have it all. He can pedal, ride mud like it’s dry, but most importantly he accepts no responsibility for how he makes the rest of the field feel after he obliterated them here. On a track that has so much history for those who can pedal, he turned up, pinned it and won. Simple as that. The same thing happened in Champery, but while he didn’t win on paper there, he did in the hearts and minds of those who witnessed his amazing bike skills.>>>