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Top 10 finish for Cappellari at the UCI DH World Cup in Lourdes

11.04.2016

A weekend with mixed feeling for the Radon Magura Factory team
UCI DH World Cup stop no1 in Lourdes, the Anaheim 1 for mountain bike downhill racing.Next to the World Champs, probably the most talked about race of the year.The media hype was huge and the pressure was on! 
For the Radon Magura Factory team is was a weekend with mixed feelings.After a good winter with training and testing in Portugal, the team was prepared for the big season opener.
Unfortunately the weather gods in Lourdes where not so kind this year. Rain on Thursday, Friday and Saturday turned training and qualifying into a big slip and slide party.Unfortunately our riders were a bit struggling in these conditions and had a hard time finding the right set-up. Short video of Fridays practice by Adam Schlang: https://we.tl/GBONlqhcFc 
Benny Strasser crashed during his qualifying run on Saturday, and was forced to sit at the sideline during Sundays finals. “World Cup racing is brutal, my qualifying rodeo ride wasn’t enough to qualify. I got my work cut out for the next races”. The other team riders “survived” these crazy conditions and qualified for the finals on Sunday. Short video of Saturday’s qualifying by Adam Schlang: https://we.tl/jbQGOgBr4v 

Raceday 

On race day the sun was out, which made the track conditions completely different from the days before.
During the women’s race the track still was pretty wet and slippery.Our girl, Carina Cappellari, handled these conditions very well and stopped the clock in a fantastic 9th position!“The changing conditions were very hard! I am happy that my race run was my best run of the weekend :)."
Unfortunately the boys couldn’t follow up Carina’s good result.German Champion Johannes Fischbach ended his first world cup of the season in 46th place: “The Radon Swoop was working fine, and the team did a great job, but somehow i didn’t feel it this weekend. I was stuggling all weekend to get a good run down the mountain”

Also our Red Bull rider Nick Beer was struggling.“First race of the year was a struggle. The wet conditions and short amount of practice time made it hard for me find the right feeling. Taking the good things out of the race weekend and move on to the next one”.

Our french rider Faustin Figaret was a bit disappointed, but he knows he’s on a good roll!“My run was so good, until the moment i crashed.. my splits were good so i know i got the speed, I just need to link everything together. It was an amazing ride in front of the french fans. I am really happy with the team atmosphere, everything is there to go fast and i am looking forward to the next one, keep smiling!”


Team manager Lars Peyer sums up the weekend."The first world cup is in the books. It was a very challenging track with tough weather conditions! It was a race with ups and downs, but all in all we are happy how things went and we are looking forward to Cairns.”


Photo credits: Duncan Phillpot 

Video credits: Adam Schlang

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Rennberichte , Radon / Magura Factory DH Team , News

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