Fabien Barel showed last weekend that he is well on schedule with his recovery by his amazing performance in Scotland.

It was just 2 years ago that Fabien suffered a similar challenge on the same track, the challenge to come back and race after a serious injury. As in 2007 where he finished 2nd in the world championships he can be pleased with his performance. The training was difficult for Fabien, firstly due to his knee injury causing him to fatigue after more than 2 min of downhill and secondly due to the limited training hours for him. Being placed out of the top 80 ranking in the world cup he was not entitled to the additional training hours. The bike setup had to be finalized on the first day so that he could concentrate on line choice and raising his riding speed to match world cup level.

On the other hand, the training went really well for Damien who was able to quickly settle into his lines and obtain a good pace. The qualifying went well for Damien and he was able to place 32nd, he was motivated for the final and knew he could ride faster. Fabien did not have a good qualifying round as he made some mistakes on the upper part of the track, which cost him some time.?For Damien the race run was going well and he was feeling really confident, hitting all his lines and carrying good speed, however it all suddenly went wrong as he felt his front wheel slide out from under him on one of the turns. He went down and broke his front brake lever so was unable to continue riding. Fortunately for him he was not injured.

Fabien showed his experience by his consistent, fast top section passing the first split within the top five, however he started to feel that he would not be able to keep up the pace all the way to the final due to his physical condition, so he controlled his run conserving the maximum energy by riding smoothly. He entered the pedalling section feeling really tired and knew he was not going to be able to push as he had done 2 years ago, however he knew that he had already ridden the top section well so managed to keep his motivation right to the finish line, giving it his all.?He crossed the line in top spot and stayed in the hot seat for 25min before he was beaten, with the knowledge that only 14 of the worlds best were able to beat his time he was pleased to back racing and confident that soon he will be back on top.

 

Next stop Maribor! 

Final results:

1) MINNAAR Greg 4:38.98

2) HILL Samuel 4:40.43

3) BLENKINSOP Samuel 4:41.85

4) ATHERTON 4:41.97?

5) HANNAH Michael 4:43.13

15) BAREL Fabien 4:49.89

 

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