The new racing season has begun Downhill: for the women, the opening round of the 2022 UCI Mountain Bike World Cup concluded yesterday which saw a podium in the Flower Ceremony with the English Tahnee Seagrave, the French Myriam Nicole and first the Swiss Camille Balanche.
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The cup began in France, in the strongest nation on the planet for downhill bikes. The French mountain where the race takes place does not have an excessive difference in height because the route starts from the mountain at an altitude of about 900 meters and the finish is at 400 meters. They are located on a less steep route than many others such as the one in Val Di Sole but has a high technicality. The course is treacherous and technical, it has hosted the race numerous times already, thelast in 2017.
The track descends from the slopes of the Pic du Jer: there are technical and fast sections. The ground is perfect: neither wet nor too dry even if the rocks slide a lot even if it hasn't rained for a long time. The track has few sides but several technical sections with lines to choose from. A nice powerful rock drop, the whoops section, the rocks section are bad because on the steep you have to do a lot of advances, it's a track that has it all. Lots of trial falls and lots of emotions.
Last season Vali Holl gave us beautiful twists by impressing everyone by winning the overall world cup in the last race with Myriam Nicole who, by falling, gave her the advantage.
This year Myriam went fast and was very nice to see, she only had a small slowdown during the race due to a slight jam that made her take a big risk. Myriam Nicole always very French style and aggressive in riding she is using a prototype bike and has a new Commencal.
Free practice, qualifying and race
The Austrian Valentina Holl got off to a good start with the pole position in the first run of the season, winning the qualifications with 3: 19: 449 like last year, with half a second behind Myriam Nicole finished second and third Tahnee Seagrave with a time of 3,23 , 4,462. Camille Balanche XNUMX, Eleonora Farina with a good position wins fifth place, with little margin on Cabirou and tenth in Parton.
Camille Balanche was good, with a perfect run and a pushed and clean drive she won the podium in the race. She had already been the winner of the Women's World Cup 2020 in Leogang. She has a guide with a little old school style that is not crazy to look at but always very composed and fast. She says in the interview at the end of the race:
"I honestly didn't feel great all weekend, you just have to be happy with what you did, be careful not to do stupid things, go down and do what you can do. Sometimes it will be a bit dangerous but from qualifying I saw where I was in bad shape and where I was doing well and now in the race I pulled my heat, I had some dangerous points but I'm happy. "
Miryam Nicole, the new elite, came in second place due to a small mistake that cost him the victory (see minute 43.25 of the video of the Final https://www.redbull.com/it-it/live/uci-mountain-bike-world-cup-2022-lourdes-downhill-women ).
The Frenchwoman says after the race that her dad was there to watch her and she was very angry because she doesn't want him to go to her races. She a few hours before she was not sure she was racing, she had had an injury and a bad fall just before the race but in the end she felt it and had an excellent result. She says: " in the race it is the first time where second is like winning". He knew very well that he could not have the usual speed and give 100% in the run but if he played it within her limits, then he took a giant risk in the first seconds that slowed her down a bit.
At the end of the race Myriam Nicole won the Rider of the day survey so she is the most beautiful and stylish rider of the day, followed by Valentina Holl and third Tahnee Seagrave, the girl of likes on Instagram.
Tahnee Seagrave won the key section by a few seconds over Farina.
From the final results it can be said that it has not happened for a long time to have the first four women with such close times. The first four athletes in 1,6 seconds, only one second and six thousandths divide the first from the fourth. The athletes were very close also with respect to the qualifications where only the first two had a very low gap time.
ORDER OF ARRIVAL ELITE FEMALE
| 1 |  | BALANCHE Camille DORVAL AM COMMENCAL | 3:19.983 |
| 2. |  | NICOLE Myriam COMMENCAL/MUC-OFF BY RIDING ADDICTION | 3:20.607 +0.624 |
| 3. |  | SEAGRAVE Tahnee CANYON COLLECTIVE FMD | 3:20.980 +0.997 |
| 4. |  | HÖLL Valentina ROCKSHOX TREK RACE TEAM | 3:21.657 +1.674 |
| 5. | | CABIROU Marine SCOTT DOWNHILL FACTORY | 3:25.620 +5.637 |
| 6. | | BERNARD Mathilde SCOTT MANIGOD SHOT | 3:32.340 +12.357 |
| 7. |  | HOFFMANN Nina SANTA CRUZ SYNDICATE | 3:33.799 +13.816 |
| 8. |  | FLOUR Eleonora MS MONDRAKER TEAM | 3:34.527 +14.544 |
| 9. |  | HRASTNIK Monika DORVAL AM COMMENCAL | 3:37.205 +17.222 |
| 10 | | WIDMANN Veronika MADISON SARACEN FACTORY TEAM | 3:38.255 +18.272 |
