UCI Mountain Bike World Cup Round #3
DOWNHILL FINALS RESULTS
Elite men
1 Steve Peat (GBr|Santa Cruz Syndicate) 0:02:22.05
2 Gee Atherton (GBr|Animal Commencal) 0:00:00.02
3 Greg Minnaar (RSA|Santa Cruz Syndicate) 0:00:01.41
4 Mick Hannah (Aus|GT) 0:00:01.66
5 Justin Leov (NZl|Trek World Racing) 0:00:01.88
Elite women
1 Sabrina Jonnier (Fra|Team Maxxis-Rocky Mountain Bicycles) 0:02:41.58
2 Emmeline Ragot (Fra|Suspension Center) 0:00:03.87
3 Tracy Moseley (GBr|Trek World Racing) 0:00:03.89
4 Céline Gros (Fra|Morzine-Avoriaz 74) 0:00:06.19
5 Myriam Nicole (Fra) 0:00:06.83
Steve Peat stormed to his second World Cup downhill victory in a row yesterday, and in the process ensured his place in the record books.
The Brit's 17th podium top-spot means he has beaten the previous record for the highest number of World Cup wins set by his old arch rival Nicolas Vouilloz.
He also has a strong lead in the series, with a total of 645 points – 127 more than his nearest rival, Santa Cruz Syndicate team-mate Greg Minnaar.
Despite big black clouds overhead the rain stayed at bay throughout the racing in Vallnord, Andorra on Sunday and all the riders raced on a dry track.
Australian Mick Hannah (GT Bicycles) set a super-fast time early on and held the lead right up until number four seed Minnaar hit the track. Greg held a strong pace all the way down and posted a 2:23.46, just 0.25 seconds ahead of Hannah.
Next up was Peat, who attacked the course, putting in extra pedal strokes wherever possible, and unseated Minnaar by 1.41 seconds. World champion Gee Atherton (Animal Commencal) followed and crossed the line just 0.2 seconds behind.
UCI Mountain Bike World Cup Round #3 Result
Giro d'italia Race stage 9 Result - Milano Show 100 - 163KM
Giro d'Italia Stage 9 Result:
1 Mark Cavendish (GBr|Team Columbia - Highroad)
2 Allan Davis (Aus|Quick Step)
3 Tyler Farrar (USA|Garmin - Slipstream)
4 Matthew Goss (Aus|Team Saxo Bank)
5 Alessandro Petacchi (Ita|LPR Brakes - Farnese Vini)
6 Robert Foerster (Ger|Team Milram)
7 Robert Hunter (RSA|Barloworld)
8 Davide Vigano (Ita|Fuji-Servetto)
9 Saïd Haddou (Fra|BBox Bouygues Telecom)
10 Thomas Fothen (Ger|Team Milram)
British sprint king Mark Cavendish claimed his first victory of the centenary Tour of Italy on Sunday to hand his dominant Columbia team their fourth win of the race.
Cavendish's win followed hours of controversy which left race director Angelo Zomegnan fuming after the entire peloton stopped in their tracks six laps from the end to make a protest about unsatisfactory safety measures.
Zomegnan agreed, reluctantly, that the times from the stage would not count towards the race's general classification.
Italian Danilo Di Luca thus retained the race leader's pink jersey with his 13sec lead on Sweden's Thomas Lövkvist intact ahead of Monday's rest day.
Controversy hit Sunday's stage before the halfway mark when, after riding at a relatively slow speed of 33km/h, the entire bunch stopped with six of the ten laps to finish to publicise their protest.
Di Luca, of the LPR team, read out a statement apologising to the public but explaining the riders were unsatisfied with safety measures.
"For myself and a lot of other riders the circuit was dangerous," said the Italian, who admitted the decision had caused a split in the peloton.
"At the start we asked for, and got, a neutralisation of the times and for that I thank the organisers. But the sprinters weren't happy, that's why we stopped to explain things to the public."
The peloton resumed riding minutes later but continued at the same, slow pace until the closing stages when the pace slowly wound up to something resembling racing over the last four laps.
In the closing stages Quick Step sprinter Allan Davis had to battle with compatriot Matthew Goss, of the Saxo Bank team, to hang on to Cavendish's wheel in the home straight.
But in the end the lead-out work of Columbia teammates Edvald Boasson Hagen and Australian Mark Renshaw helped give Isle of Man rider Cavendish the edge as he came over the line to leave Davis in second.
It is Cavendish's first Giro win this year, and third in total after his two stage wins last year, although he came over the finish line first in the team time trial last Saturday to pull on the pink jersey.
"This is the stage I was really targeting," said Cavendish. "I messed up the first sprint (on stage two) but I've made up for it. There's a limited number of sprints in this year's Giro, so I wanted this one really badly."
Columbia's other stage wins came courtesy of Norwegian ace Hagen on Friday and Belarussian Kanstantsin Siutsou on Saturday.
Italian sprinter Alessandro Petacchi, the winner of stages two and three, came fifth while a second peloton that had given up all hope of victory came over the finish line over two minutes in arrears.
Di Luca, the 2007 champion, will go into Tuesday's 10th stage, a 262km ride in the Italian Alps from Cuneo to Pinerolo, wary of a number of close rivals.
Lövkvist's Columbia teammate Michael Rogers is third overall at 44sec with a quartet of bigger victory contenders - Levi Leipheimer, Denis Menchov, Ivan Basso and Carlos Sastre - all between 51sec and 1:24 in arrears.
General classification after stage 9
1 Danilo Di Luca (Ita|LPR Brakes - Farnese Vini)
2 Thomas Lövkvist (Swe|Team Columbia - Highroad) 0:00:13
3 Michael Rogers (Aus|Team Columbia - Highroad) 0:00:44
4 Levi Leipheimer (USA|Astana) 0:00:51
5 Denis Menchov (Rus|Rabobank) 0:00:58
6 Ivan Basso (Ita|Liquigas) 0:01:14
7 Carlos Sastre (Spa|Cervelo Test Team) 0:01:24
8 Christopher Horner (USA|Astana) 0:01:25
9 Franco Pellizotti (Ita|Liquigas) 0:01:35
10 David Arroyo (Spa|Caisse d'Epargne) 0:01:49