A great weekend up in Scotland for the Athertons!

Brit thrills home crowd in the Highlands

Gee Atherton of team Commencal thrilled the home crowd to take an
inaugural win at the second leg of the UCI Downhill Mountain Bike
World Cup in Fort William, Scotland.
In a nail biting finish to a superb weekend of racing the middle
Atherton sibling avenged his brothers and sisters bad fortunes and
solidified his chase on the overall World Cup title.
The weekend looked to be a sad affair for the Atherton family as Dan
the eldest exited Saturday night’s 4X event in the quarter-finals.
This was then followed by little sister Rachel, she got pipped to the
win by just over a second by French woman Sabrina Jonnier.

This left Gee with it all to do and he didn’t disappoint.
Atherton’s time of 4.35.70 set the mark with only 5 riders left to
descend, although all came close at the intermediate times it was
Gee’s lower section that really set him apart from the rest of the
field.
Cameron Cole of New Zealand the number two seed came closest to
toppling the Brit in front of the 15,000 strong crowd, just two
tenths of a second down at the intermediate split, Cole could not
regain enough on the Brit to take over the lead.

This left South African Greg Minnaar the only person capable of
silencing the home crowd. Greg trailed only four tenths at the last
split and was looking good, but the current World Cup leader and
former World Champ did not quite have enough in the tank to topple Gee.
As the South African crossed the line to claim third, Gee stood up to
salute the masses and a deafening noise erupted at the Nevis Range
resort.

“Winning in Fort William means so much to me, I honestly can say that
it is right up there with winning the World Championships in 2008. It
comes almost as a relief to me, all the hard work, not just this
winter but the last few years - today made it all worth it. The crowd
were just un-real and I’d like to thank every one of them for making
me push that little harder up there.”, said Gee.
The Brit is now biting at the heals of Minnaar in the overall just 15
points behind, while the youngest in the Atherton family, Rachel is
mirroring the same situation in the women’s event as she chases down
Jonnier.
Next stop for the World Cup circuit is Leogang, Austria where the
family will look to continue the great start to the season.

MEN'S DOWNHILL #2 RESULTS

1 Gee Atherton (GBR) Commencal : 04.35.70

2 Cameron Cole (NZL) Team Maxxis Rocky Mountain : 00.00.46

3 Greg Minaar (RSA) Santa Cruz Syndicate : 00.01.21

4 Aaron Gwin (USA) Yeti Fox Shox : 00.02.01

5 Michael Hannah (AUS) GT : 00.02.05