UCI MTB World Cup Rnd 3 Willengen, Germany

Club Mud...

Barely a week after the World Cup in Fort William, the world's best riders were on the road again to the next round of the World Cup series which was taking place in Germany. Racing on a completely manmade course, featuring gigantic 30 foot+jumps, big drops and massive rock sections, the airtime available on some sections of the track brought new meaning to the word 'big'. This round saw another wet race with downpours which did their best to put the last rounds weather to shame. As such the course was muddy, very slippery and badly cut up after a few days of practice.

Two members of the team were out racing this weekend. Rich Thomas and Matt Simmonds had made the journey out to make their mark on Europe and were unfaised by the monster track. The first big jump section at the top of the course was very tricky with wet take offs and landings. Matt spent a whole morning hitting this section aiming to perfect it for racing. Unfortunately, on another big jump section at the bottom of the course Rich crashed hard and broke his arm taking him out of the racing for the weekend.(See News Update for the full story on Rich's crash).

Matt looked strong throughout the rest of practice and in the morning qualifiers; come racing he put in a very strong run to take 56th place overall. Very well done to Matt and again a big Get Well soon to Rich.