The Lapierre Team had a tough race in Leogang, Loris Vergier back in 28th, Sam Blenkinsop in 16th and Loic Bruni in 27th after coming so close to stealing Bryceland’s first win. Emmeline Ragot made up for the guy’s bad luck with a 4th place but as a team things didn’t go to plan.
This is downhill though and the team have to bounce back and race again. This time across the pond and after a break of eight weeks it was time for a comeback. Still only Emmeline is riding the new bike that was launched back in June at Fort William but Sam, Loic and Loris seem to still be going flat out on their old steeds.
Emmeline and the team all like the MSA track and even though it’s 10km/hr faster than all the others according to Loic there are still lines to be found. Loris landed third place and he is just 4 points behind Luca Shaw in the overall after being 4.248s back in his race run. Emmeline Ragot matched Loris with another third place but she is definitely up there with the fastest girls. There was just 0.771s between her and Manon with Rachel less than half a second ahead of Ragot in second. After the top three the times dropped off by more than 15s keeping the points table tight at the top. Manon still leads but the gap back to Rachel from Emmeline is now just 20 points.
Sam Blenkinsop was back on form with a 5th place, one day he will win one of these things but for now the top step of the podium remains elusive. After crashing out in his race run at Leogang Bruni repeated his Austrian experience with an over the bars in qualifying. The race run was all rubber side down but he could only manage 9th when the pressure was on.
There is so much talent in this team that one day it will all slot together and when it does they could well smash everyone out of the park!
Check out the previous video from the team here along with their brand new bike:
