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Round 6 of the 2022 UCI Downhill MTB World Cup season took place over the weekend in Snowshoe, USA. Muddy and difficult race conditions made for an incredible race, one for the history books.
In the Elite Men’s race it was Amaury Pierron, the overall series leader and fast qualifier, who came out on top. Earlier in the final, Finn Iles and Laurie Greenland laid down fast markers, but a steady stream of racers began to better their times until Andreas Kolb produced a scorching run to go fastest with only five riders left.
Neither Ronan Dunne or Loïc Bruni could better Kolb’s time, with Bruni cashing hard and being forced to retire with a broken brake. Bernard Kerr then delivered a career-best run to beat Kolb by 1.3s with just Thibault Daprella and Pierron left to race.
A crash took Daprella out of the running, but Pierron wasn’t to be denied and clawed back a deficit of almost two seconds on the second half of the course to take his fourth win of the World Cup season by 0.414s.
Kerr, Kolb and Dunne celebrated their best-ever finishes in 2nd, 3rd and 4th, with Greg Minnaar completing the podium in 5th.
Amaury Pierron
In the Elite Women’s race sunshine had dried out the open sections of the course, but in the rock-filled woods conditions remained incredibly slick and this is where Camille Balanche won the race. Clearing the most treacherous sections with a poise unmatched by any of her rivals, Balanche crossed the line in a time of 4:28.585s to claim victory over Myriam Nicole by just over four seconds.
Nicole was flying during her finals run, but lost her front wheel and fell just after the halfway point, but she still slotted into 2nd place by two seconds over Nina Hoffmann.
Valentina Höll and Monika Hrastnik completed the podium behind Balanche and Nicole and Hoffmann.
Camille Balanche
Men’s Results (Top 10)
1st Amaury Pierron 3:34.442
2nd Bernard Kerr 3:34.856
3rd Andreas Kolb 3:36.250
4th Ronan Dunne 3:37.013
5th Greg Minnaar 3:37.962
6th Danny Hart 3:38.314
7th Laurie Greenland 3:39.603
8th Loris Vergier 3:39.960
9th Finn Iles 3:40.090
10th David Trummer 3:42.913
Women’s Results (Top 10)
1st Camille Balanche 4:28.585
2nd Myriam Nicole 4:32.730
3rd Nina Hoffmann 4:34.692
4th Vali Höll 4:44.489
5th Monika Hrastnik 4:45.362
6th Eleonora Farina 4:48.870
7th Mille Johnset 4:55.371
8th Veronika Widmann 5:01.835
9th Anna Newkirk 5:04.054
10th Jess Blewitt 5:36.222
Photos by Bartek Wolinski / Red Bull Content Pool.
