MTB cycling: The 2016 season of the iXS Swiss Downhill Cup started last weekend in less than ideal weather conditions. Around 350 riders from 17 countries faced off in Morgins with rain, fog and a track that offered hardly any grip. In the end, the German Kim Schwemmer (Herobikes) and the Swiss Basil Weber (Team Project) won the mud fight in Morgins.
While the sun was still shining on Friday, completely different conditions prevailed on Saturday. Because of the dense fog, training had to be interrupted for safety reasons. The Seeding Run on the wet and extremely muddy slope started one and a half hours late. The 3.300 meter long track with 500 meters of altitude difference is very demanding even in the best weather. The prevailing track conditions on Saturday presented the downhill riders with an extremely tricky and exhausting challenge. So it was hardly surprising that the ranking list was pretty jumbled up at the end: Drivers with low starting numbers were sometimes found at the back of the result list. The fastest time in the Seeding Run was set by French Julien Piccolo (X1 Racing) for the Elite Men and Géraldine Fink (Pink Gravity) from Switzerland for the women.
Even if the weather on Sunday morning was better, the adverse track conditions unfortunately did not change. The improvement in the weather was acknowledged by the track changing from wet to sticky, which, however, was not conducive to grip. After the Open Classes and the U17 class, the Elite Women class started with just nine riders. With a time of 6:51,684 minutes, Kim Schwemmer won ahead of Géraldine Fink and Eva Bottolla from Switzerland. As usual, the Elite Men hit the slopes last. With 5:02.926 minutes, Basil Weber set a time that the following drivers couldn't beat either. Four seconds down, Guillaume Larbeyou (Aveyron VTT) finished second, with Britain's Guy Gibbs (Ride.io) completing the podium.
The second run of the iXS Swiss Downhill Cup 2016 will take place on August 19th in Wiriehorn.