LA MASSANA, Andorra (transcendmagazine.com) -- The skies threatened but the rains held off in Andorra at the 3rd World Cup downhill of the year. Steve Peat (GBR - Santa Cruz Syndicate) took home a historic win, officially becoming the greatest downhill rider of all time by eclipsing Nicolas Vouilloz's long standing record of 16 wins. With his 17th victory, Peaty widens his lead on the overall world cup standings. Peaty narrowly beat Countrymen Gee Atherton by .02 seconds. Greg Minnaar (RSA - Santa Cruz Syndicate) took home third. Sam Hill (AUS - Monster Energy- Specialized) was up by 1.6 seconds less than 40 seconds into the course when he had a horrendous crash off of the face away drop and ended up 50m away from his landing zone in a snowbank. He walked away unscathed, somehow.
Steve Peat spoke with us form the finish line. "It feels unreal. I didn't think i was going to win this week. It didn't feel like a win. Some bobbles and i just didn't think I was carrying speed good. I knew it'd take some luck and it did with sam crashing obviously. I think the lack of off season training has helped me get motivated, I had a second kid coming and just put my mind to that instead. I've got 2 kids at home and a beautiful family. I just come and ride my bike now instead of it being the be all and end all."
Hill was happy to be in one piece after his encounter with the snow. "I'm just happy to be alive after that crash. That was probably the wildest thing I have had happen to me on a bike. Somehow my head missed the stump, the rock next to it and I landed in the snowbank. I had snowflakes all over my goggles and couldn't see anything. It was wild"
For the women, Sabrina Jonnier took the field to school, winning by almost 4 seconds. Emmeline Ragot (FRA - Suspension Center) was second and Tracy Moseley (GBR - Trek) took third. Sabrina was beaming after the race. " I'm happy again! My run went pretty good. I knew that I could make the difference on the top, its my kid of track. So I tried to go pretty fast at the top and tried to stay on my bike in the technical part. I pedaled to the finish and apparently it was good enough. I've never won at Ft William, only worlds. It will be a good challenge because Tracy will be pretty pissed off right now and she always does awesome there."
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