{"id":21566,"date":"2013-09-16T12:00:00","date_gmt":"2013-09-16T11:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/2013\/09\/16\/highlights-from-this-weekend39s-world-cup-in-hafjell-norway-r945\/"},"modified":"2023-02-08T12:23:16","modified_gmt":"2023-02-08T12:23:16","slug":"highlights-from-this-weekend39s-world-cup-in-hafjell-norway-r945","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/highlights-from-this-weekend39s-world-cup-in-hafjell-norway-r945\/","title":{"rendered":"Highlights from this weekend’s World Cup In Hafjell, Norway"},"content":{"rendered":"

What was initially thought to be a dry weekend quickly turned around as riders met slippery conditions and had to adjust their strategies to suit the wayward weather. The practices on the dry courses couldn’t prepare the riders from either XC or Downhill for what the actual race runs would be like.<\/p>\n

\"ccs-41808-0-18158200-1379331816.jpg\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Image credit: live.redbull.com<\/span><\/p>\n

The XCO course, while being rather short at 4.1km, proved very challenging; the rocky descents and consistent climbs pushing riders to the limits of their endurance. The women’s race saw Irina Kalentieva taking the win ahead of Eva Lechner in second and Julie Bresset in third.<\/p>\n

In the men’s race, with the absence of Julien Absalon because of a broken rib suffered at the World Champs, Jaroslav Kulhavy pulled out the stops and took the win ahead of Nino Schurter in a tight race with only 7 seconds between them. Manuel Fumic, meanwhile, managed to pull out a lead on Mathias Fluckiger and grabbed third place.<\/p>\n

\"ccs-41808-0-83635200-1379331710.jpg\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Image credit: Redbull.com<\/span><\/p>\n

Like the Eliminator<\/a> series, neither of the actual winners of this weekend’s races were the overall winners of the series. Irina Kalentieva took the top spot for the women, while Jaroslav Kulhavy extended his impressive lead till the end.<\/p>\n

\"ccs-41808-0-62139200-1379331768.jpg\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a9 Red Bull Media House<\/span><\/p>\n

The Downhill took a very interesting turn, the rain mixing up all the plans that the riders had on how to tackle the course. There was much slipping and sliding and this took Gee Atherton off guard, having hit a tree in the rock garden and not placing as high as he hoped for at 12th. Steve Smith on the other hand got exactly where he wanted, taking his second win in Hafjell, having won here last year in similar conditions.<\/p>\n

\"ccs-41808-0-56526400-1379331769.jpg\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a9 Red Bull Media House<\/span><\/p>\n

Danny Hart took second place, while Andrew Neethling claimed third and a personal. Minnaar meanwhile finished off the podium placers, settling for 5th, with his teammate Steve Peat right behind him. With Smith only 17 points behind the overall leader, Atherton, it will come down to the last race in the series in Austria to determine the overall winner.<\/p>\n

\"ccs-41808-0-89371500-1379331770.jpg\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a9 Red Bull Media House<\/span><\/p>\n

This isn’t the case with the women’s series though, as Rachel Atherton continues her domination by taking the win over Manon Carpenter in second and Myriam Nicole in third. While well into the lead, Atherton still has to keep it together going into the final round, as it can still determine the overall standings of the series.<\/p>\n

\"ccs-41808-0-12771400-1379332014.jpg\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a9 Red Bull Media House<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What was initially thought to be a dry weekend quickly turned around as riders met slippery conditions and had to adjust their strategies to suit the wayward weather. The practices on the dry courses couldn’t prepare the riders from either XC or Downhill for what the actual race runs would be like. Image credit: live.redbull.com […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":52930,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[1076,207,487,93,638,196],"featured_location":[],"class_list":["post-21566","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-events","tag-dhi","tag-downhill","tag-mtb","tag-uci","tag-world-cup","tag-xco"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21566","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21566"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21566\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/52930"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21566"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21566"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21566"},{"taxonomy":"featured_location","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/featured_location?post=21566"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}