Reigning World Cup champion Greg Minnaar has won the first round of the 2009 series in front of his home crowd…

New Zealand’s Cameron Cole sat in the hot seat for most of the day as none of the riders outside the top 10 seemed to be able to knock him off. Things got exciting when Sam Hill stormed down the mountain and went 2 seconds under the Kiwis time. With Sam’s time much better then his qualifying one the crowd was on its feet and applauding. When the commentator asked Sam if he had done enough for the win he replied that he thought it was a long way off a first place spot, but hoped it was enough to get him a place on the podium.

Shortly after that Peaty came stampeding down the course to take the hot seat away from Hill. The crowd erupted as the “people’s champion” crossed the line and went into the first spot. It’s clear that Peaty is one of a kind when it comes to downhill racing. He will always be a crowd favorite and his engaging comments with the crowd really got them cheering and on his feet. After the cheers died down he got on the mic and said “now don’t forget to cheer like that for Greg” to which the crowd went crazy. Steve Peat… a living legend!

As soon as Greg Minnaar took to the track the atmosphere was electric. You could hear the cheers and vuvuzelas blowing all the way down the hill. When he crossed the last split with his time 5 seconds up the crowds went absolutely nuts. With only the 4X track to go it would have taken a serious mistake to stop Greg from taking a convincing lead, and take a convincing lead is exactly what he did. Even though there was still Mick Hannah at the top of the mountain the people went crazy as he crossed the line 5 seconds up on Peaty. It was a truly awesome sight to see Greg put in such a performance in his home town.

As the last man took to the hill there was a deathly silence as Mick headed toward the last split going into the 4X track. His time looked good, but you couldn’t be sure exactly how good it was. As Mick crossed the split a +2 flashed on the big screen and the crowd went wild. With 800 meters of 4X track to go it would be almost impossible for him to beat Minnaar now. Mick put on an awesome performance but only just managed to push Peaty into third and secured himself the 2nd place spot.

Minnaar had done it. He had wont the first round of the 2009 world cup, and he had done it in his home town. The fans were absolutely beside themselves and some guy grabbed the mic from the MC and started singing at the top of his voice Minnaar, Minnaar, Minnaar, Minnaar, Minnaar….

It was a great days racing and we can’t wait to see what happens in round 2.

Mens Final:
1. Minnaar 3:43.44
2. Hannah 3:45.69
3. Peat 3:49.25
4. Hill 3:50.18
5. Atherton 3:52.01

Womans Final:
1 Tracy Moseley 4:20.15
2 Emmeline Ragot 4:26.53
3 Sabrina Jonnier 4:28.61

Winning Team:
Treak World Racing

Tags: greg minnaar, Pietermartizburg World Cup, UCI World Cup

This entry was posted on Sunday, April 12th, 2009 at 8:15 pm and is filed under Downhill, Events, News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.