Honestly, I thought I was prepared for rain. But this is beyond everything I’ve ever seen before. Worse than any cyclo-cross race. According to other photogs, we’ll see 40mm rain today.
One aspect of downhill races I truely hate is the ski lifts: being afraid of heights, every ride up to the top of the hill challenges my commitment. The good thing today was that due to the heavy fog, I barely saw what was underneath.
At the mountain-top was completely covered by fog – looks impressive but makes our job harder.
First came last year’s overall World Cup winner, Sam Hill. His ride was so smooth that he won the qualifying round by 2.11 seconds.
Reigning world champion, Steve Peat didn’t have a similarly strong ride today, he qualified at the 11th position, almost 10 seconds behind Hill.
This guy broke his pedal which meant the end of his race.
Cedric Gracia
At this point, I was so cold that I had to walk back to the press center. My clothes cease to be waterproof and the cameras were sprayed with water and mud. I was close to the point to head back to the hotel to get dry but then I decided to stay. I’m still very cold but fortunately, the 4X race starts in a couple of minutes so I can back to the hotel relatively early. More to come soon.