showfeatures
Show features
articles
Pietermaritzburg National DH results (South Africa)

This weekend’s race in Greg Minaar’s howetown of Pietermaritzburg has had huge international interest due to the lineup of top riders heading down to learn the track before next week’s World Cup on the same course. It’s the first big showdown of the year and a good indicator of who’s been stepping it up in the winter months, and who’s been doing too much extreme road cycling.

alt

Podium for the Pietermaritzburg National round, 2009.
Photo: Emmeline Ragot

UK DH legend Tracy Moseley continued her winning form from the Maxxis Cup series to take the win by 6 seconds in a time of 4:34. The course was mostly flattish with big jumps, but steep and technical in just a few shortish sections, so Tracy’s strong pedalling ability works well for her here. Claire Buchar finished second in 4:40, proving that she’s been busy with new husband and CRC Intense teammate Chris Kovarik over winter – and I mean on the bike, training. Emmeline Ragot showed she was definitely doing something right during her off-season in New Zealand by finishing in 4:43 and third place, despite a huge crash on a triple-jump in practice day and only getting three practice runs in total before the race. Hopefully she gets some more practice and a new helmet before next weekend! Fionn Griffiths came fourth in the downhill and also won Saturday’s 4x. Nice. The top 5 was rounded out by South African rider Joanna Petterson to keep the home crowd happy.

Bring on next week’s World Cup, when the rest of the world’s finest and fastest will join this lot to battle for 2009’s first World Cup series points.

Dirtmag have a couple of photos of Tracy and Claire in action here, including one of Claire hitting the big step-down. Phoar! There’s also some of Emmeline and Fionn racing 4x here.