Damien Spagnolo moves into the top 30 overall world cup ranking, Fabien Barel back on the Bike, And Florent Payet out for the season! A good weekend for the SUBARU mountainbike Pro team saw the progression of Damien finishing 30th overall in the UCI world cup ranking due to consistent riding so far this year. The world cup pace has considerably increased for 2009 and the times are closer and closer every round, with only 2 seconds separating 15th and 40th place.

 

Damien had an overall good run but rode a little cautiously on the upper section of the track and then pushed a little too hard on one of the technical sections trying to catch up lost time, unfortunately this lead to a couple of mistakes loosing valuable seconds. The next few weeks will be important for Damien as he tries to increase his speed by pushing the limit of his riding a little past his current “safe pace”. This is a step that he is prepared for and now will have Fabien to help him pass it.

 Fabien spent the weekend supporting Damien and was also able to get some time on his enduro bike, he was happy to have been able to get back on the bike and do some runs in the bike park, all went well his knee was feeling strong. Fabien’s next goal will be to prepare for the Fort William world cup. More news about Fabien next week.

Another big news this weekend has been Florent Payet pull out for the season. Racing is requiring Technical but also mental skills to perform. The riders are under pressure all year long to give the best of them self. As a big surprise for the all team, Florent decided to pull out racing. He precised to us that he was not capable to hold the pace of a full World cup season, and that he would need to refresh himself to come back stronger next year. The all team is very disappointed of the situation but wish him all the best in the new challenge that is facing him.

On the team side, we will find out during the week, if we will hire another rider for the rest of the season.

Final results:

1. Steve Peat 2:22.05

2. Gee Atherton 2:22.07

3. Greg Minaar 2:23.46

4. Michael Hannah 2:23.71

5. Justin Leov 2:23.93

41. Damien Spagnolo 2:28.84 

This entry was posted on Monday, May 25th, 2009 at 9:40 am and is filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.