The Mountain Bike World Cup is in action again this weekend in Cairns, Australia. In the first event of the year in the downhill competition defending series champion Aaron Gwin was the winner. Gwin will be trying to go back-to-back to start 2016 and is joined by four other Americans in the field including Luca Shaw who was 21st in Lourdes.
The downhill begins on Friday with the qualifying round and ends on Saturday with the finals and on Sunday a cross-country competition will be held.
Previous Mountain Bike World Cup Coverage: Lourdes Recap
Aaron Gwin started the 2016 UCI Mountain Bike World Cup the same way he ended the last one: in first place. Gwin, the defending series champion, was tenth in qualifying but was able to post a strong 3:09.131 to nab first place in first event. Top qualifier Loic Bruni was racing even faster and was ahead of Gwin on time before crashing and ended up 14th.
At the first stage of the 2016 UCI Mountain Bike World Cup is this weekend in Lourdes, France the qualifying round was the end of the road for three Americans while four more advanced to Sunday’s final. On the positive side of things defending champion Aaron Gwin advanced to the final, though he did finish 10th in qualifying and 12 seconds off the top time. The other Americans to reach the final were Neko Mulally (22nd), Luca Shaw (42nd), and Luca Cometti (74th). Shane Leslie, Dakota Norton, and Elliot Jackson did not advance.
The first stage of the 2016 UCI Mountain Bike World Cup is this weekend in Lourdes, France. Seven American men are in the field for this downhill competition. Qualification will take place on Saturday with the final on Sunday. The clear favorite among the Americans and probably the entire field is defending champion Aaron Gwin. Gwin won four events on the tour last season and added a second place finish en route to winning the entire series. Gwin won the Lourdes event last year by almost four seconds.
Things begin at 8 AM ET on Saturday with the start of qualifying for the men.