Fort William has once again won the UCI’s annual vote for the best DH event during the Nissan UCI World Cup series, an accolade that it’s won every year the event has been held – the only gap in organiser Rare Management’s line-up of awards is 2007, because that year Fort William hosted the World Championships and didn’t have a World Cup round.

The awards are voted for by World Cup winners, other riders and teams, media, sponsors and the UCI itself, with votes weighted 20%, 10%, 20%, 20%, and 30% respectively. Fort William was an easy winner in the DH category – thousands of cheering spectators can’t be wrong. Mont-Sainte-Anne and Maribor took second and third places.

Rare Management’s Mike Jardine commented, “Thanks to everyone for another great year – in 2009 we’ve got some new ideas to help keep us at the top…”

For the first time, there was a separate category for 4X events, in which Fort William came second, narrowly beaten by Bromont, Canada, which ran a triple-header World Cup after nine years away from the circuit.

Of the cross-country rounds, relative newcomer Offenburg took the honours thanks to “remarkable organization and a particularly spectacular circuit”. Multiple former winner Houffalize was second, with Mont Sainte Anne in third.

Marathon is something of the “lost discipline” in World Cup racing – there’s a full programme of events, but nobody pays too much attention to them. It’s perhaps unsurprising, then, that 2009 won’t include Marathon World Cups, which makes Ornans the final winner of the UCI award as well as the final host of a Marathon World Cup race.