Greg Minnaar of Team G Cross Honda finished in 2nd place today at Round 3 of
the UCI World Cup Downhill Series in Willingen, Germany, after qualifying 2nd
in the Semi Final. The points from today were enough to catapult him from 7th
to 2nd in the overall standings. Team mate Matti Lehikoinen also had another
strong weekend finishing 9th, and moving up to 11th overall.
The course in Willingen is a short two minutes with a mix of large jumps and
drop offs at the top and with open fast corners mid way, a flat section at the
bottom. There is little room for error and the times are always super close. In
timed training runs the course was running slow at 2m 07secs after a lot of
rain during the week, but it steadily got faster.
The semi final tactic was to once again gain as many points as possible in the
come back from Round 1's point loss. Greg had a near flawless run and was happy
to cross the line with a time that would stand for second by the time the race
was over, and earn a valuable 40 World Cup points. Series leader Sam Hill
finished 10th and lost nearly 30 points to Greg. Matti finished a strong 9th to
also take some World Cup points.
In the final the pressure was on, as both riders had a heavy dose of nerves
heading up on the slow Willingen chairlift. Temperatures were still hanging
around 10 degrees Celsius, but with the wind chill factor, it felt close to
freezing. Both riders had extended warm ups before their run in a bid to hit
the 2 minute track fully ready. Matti had an excellent first section, and in
fact, was third fastest for the day by the interval, faster than Greg, but a
small mistake on the bottom cost him a second, and the podium. Greg made small
mistake early in the race and pushed hard in the bottom half. His interval time
was 4th fastest and most thought he would not take the lead, but a very
impressive bottom half of the course saw Greg move into 1st place, with only
the legend, Steve Peat, to come. Steve's interval flashed up on the scoreboard
and it was clearly the fastest and he went on the take a strong win, his 15th
World Cup race, and only one less than all time race winner, Nico!
Date:
05/06/2006