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Mont Sainte-Anne World Cup World Cup
Mont Sainte-Anne - Canada
Alex Cameron and Fred Audet - 8th September 2006
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Mont Sainte-Anne is a mainstay on the World Cup circuit. The old course at Sainte-Anne was famous for its gnarly technical sections and often for the extreme mud thrown into the mix. It has always been known to separate the men from the boys.
Although it had been raining hard in the weeks leading up to the 2006 World Cup race, by the time the circus rolled into town this year, the rain had stopped and the ground was tacky, hard-packed and blazing fast for most of the updated course. The real challenge for many at the race was just getting up in the morning after the Saint-Jean party that left many hangovers in its wake prior to the race!
Despite the bright sunny conditions, in some of the forest sections we found that the course did not get much of a chance to dry up. Over the course of practice, these damper sections were thrashed and in rough shape. Overall however, the course was really fast thanks to dry conditions and some new high speed sections with cornering and big berms.
While hiking down the DH track to find a good spot to shoot, we noticed every detail of the race. There were many high speed and technical sections. There was even a great spot to take photos, a nice drop of about 5 feet and a left turn just after. We wanted to stay in that area to start shooting but the lighting was a bit hard. During practice the riders were incredibly fast, faster than we had ever seen anyone ride Sainte-Anne. Crowd support was also strong at this race which was great to see.
The 4X race looked much like last year, with many bank turns and a few stumps. Michal Prokop continued his near-perfect season of 4X racing with a win at Sainte-Anne. His overall points total nearly doubled Jared Graves, who held down second-place after this race. Brian Lopes didn't make the podium this year. He's still wearing White Oakley's though! No incredible crashes this year and no one got hurt (which is a good thing. Then, in the semi-finals everybody crashed, making it quite entertaining to watch who gets up first to finish the race!
By the time the dust settled on the DH course, the defending women's World Cup champ, Sabrina Jonnier, was the fastest woman on the day, beating out Tracy Mosely by just over two seconds. In the men's field, many eyes were trained on Nathan Rennie, who had been practicing at Sainte-Anne for a long time before the race, including participating in (and winning) a Canadian national series race the week before the World Cup. Unfortunately, Rennie only managed an 8th place finish on the day.
Steve Peat has had great success in the past at Mont Sainte-Anne, with the gnarly conditions usually favouring his style. Racing with a broken knuckle this year, Peat still laid down a fast run that was good enough for 5th place. He was narrowly beaten by his fellow countryman Marc Beaumont who landed an impressive 4th place on the day. However, no one could beat Chris Kovarik. Minnaar was closest to the win at only 0.32 seconds back and Sam Hill a second further back. Tight finish to a great weekend of racing action!
DH Men Elite results
1 KOVARIK Chris 4:44.20
2 MINNAAR Greg 4:44.52
3 HILL Samuel 4:45.44
4 BEAUMONT Marc 4:45.84
5 PEAT Steve 4:46.86
DH Women Elite results
1 JONNIER Sabrina 5:25.22
2 MOSELEY Tracy 5:27.37
3 SANER Marielle 5:33.27
4 ATHERTON Rachel 5:38.23
5 RAGOT Emmeline 5:40.79
For full results, click here: Velirium results.
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