RESULTS: Qualifying from Leogang World Cup Downhill 9

The updated track in Leogang, Austria, made for tight racing during qualifiers at the UCI Mountain Bike World Cup Downhill. Vali Holl took fast-time honors in Junior Women's seeding while the top spot in the Junior Men's qualifier was won by just .044 seconds where Thibaut Daprela edged out Kye A'hern.

Tahnee Seagrave backs up her Fort William win with a first place today, leaving her the last woman down the mountain on Sunday. Rachel Atherton and Myriam Nicole had crashes in their qualifiers leaving them with less-than-stellar results and time to be made up tomorrow. Props to #USDH women, Abigail Hogie and Ella Skalwold for making the trek to Austria to race! It looks like the weekend didn't go as planned with Abigail just missing out on qualifying for finals and Ella having a DNS, but it's nice to finally see some American flags in the Elite Women's results. Keep it up!

Rachel discusses her crash

Luca Shaw keeps the #USDH heat on with another top qualifying result today. He was also the fastest qualifier in Fort William last week but suffered a flat tire during his race run. Luca was just .146 ahead of danger-man, Brook MacDonald in 2nd place. Brook returned to form at the beginning of 2018 after some lackluster seasons, qualifying first in Croatia. He crashed in his Croatia race run, breaking his collarbone. He healed quickly during a long break between races and posted a solid 11th place in Fort William last weekend. Today's qualifying result shows he's ready to attack for the win. Last week's winner, Amaury Pierron, takes 3rd with the French freight train of Loic Bruni and Loris Vergier in tow. The Top 7 were only separated by 1.8 seconds. Aaron Gwin is still nursing an injured hand from a crash in Fort William. He held on and salvaged some points, but we'd have to imagine he wasn't pushing 100% today. We received a report that Danny Hart had a flat tire. The competition was so close today that the Top 60 qualifiers were separated by just 10 seconds with Phil Atwill squeaking by in 60th place.

Elite Men's Qualifying Results

Make your prediction for the Elite Men's Leogang race win!

(this list is based off the Top 19 qualifiers with one "other" option)

Elite Women's Qualifying Results

Junior Men's Qualifying Results

Junior Women's Seeding Results

Qualifying Start Stats

• 158 Elite Men on start list, 12 #USDH shredders
• 41 Elite Women on start list, 2 #USDH shredders
• 65 Junior Men on start list, 1 #USDH shredder
• 8 Junior Women on start list, 1#USDH shredder

Links

• Check out EliotJackson.com for analysis of the performances including a cool "race" infographic (qualifying updates should happen shortly)
• Vital RAW, Leogang
• How Leogang Got Its Groove Back
• Elite Men's Race Start List (PDF)

Vital RAW from this morning (holy crap, how fast are they going?!)