Our race weekend in Loudenvielle ended with the downhill qualifications. Oli has again proved that he’s one of the fastest, but a crash at the bottom costed him too many seconds. Aimi also did very good, showed her best run of the week, and was 25th.
Wet conditions caused a lot of havoc on the downhill track, weather pushed organizers towards changes of the schedule, the elite races were even cut short. A familiar scenario for this venue, but one that we didn’t focus on. Both Aimi Kenyon and Oli Clark can ride in the wet, and they more than proved that in the last days.
Aimi showed her best in the qualifications run! The ultimate goal of getting into top-10 and race finals was out of hands, but she showed a solid run, without any crashes. The track was drying at the time, but the second half was still slippery! Unlike so many other riders she gained positions in the very last section, which is great motivation booster!
Oli was on the track later in the afternoon when the track got even faster. He started with a bang, was in green on the splits one and two, and in solid 4th on the third time split. Then it happened! Oli crashed on one of the jumps, the track there changed drastically and was caught by a surprise on the landing. What a shame, Oli would finish the day among the fastest and would have battle for glory on the race day.
Oli Clark: “I unfortunately had a big crash towards the bottom of my qalies run. I was able to get back on and carry on but fell short of qualifying and ended up 31st. With a lot of schedule changes and time in between practice and qualies it made it very difficult to judge the conditions and the track changing. I really enjoyed the weekend and made some good progress tho. Time to rest up and start prepping for MSA.”
Like Oli said, the racing continues in Canada later in the month! We go there with full confidence & motivation to do very well!
LINKS
Oli on Instagram
Aimi on Instagram
UCI MTB World Series
Photos: Sebastian Sternemann (track) & Jaka Močilnik (paddock)
