Steve Peat bins it in sight of the finish (Pic © zooom.at/flohagena.de)

The rainbow jersey that Steve Peat’s been trying to win for his whole career slipped from his grasp once again yesterday. The Orange rider was last man down on the super-fast Les Gets course, and he was flying. He posted a split time a second up on the leader Fabien Barel and just seemed to be getting faster and faster. Barel had resigned himself to second place but then, within sight of the line, Peat caught a root on the penultimate corner, span out and crashed.

Fabien Barel on his way to a rainbow jersey (Pic © zooom.at/flohagena.de)

He was straight back up and back on the bike but to no avail – he crossed the line four seconds down in 11th place. Victory went to Fabien Barel, who, after a conservative seeding run, had sat in the finals hotseat watching the next 32 riders come down. A great day for the Frenchman – not only did he win on home soil but he won at the resort that sponsors him…

Defending champion Greg Minnaar was second, with Sam Hill in third. Britain’s Marc Beaumont put in a storming ride for 9th place, just ahead of Gee Atherton in 10th.

Most of the women’s field has got used to racing for second place behind Anne-Caroline Chausson, but a crash in training forced her out of the finals. Combined with the absence through injury of Tracy Moseley, that threw the race wide open – suddenly everyone was in with a much better chance of the coveted rainbow jersey.

Chausson went out injured – Vanessa Quin took the advantage (Pic © zooom.at/flohagena.de)

Vanessa Quin was second-fastest qualifier and went into the Chausson-free finals as favourite. And she didn’t disappoint, taking top spot by 2.78 seconds from Japan’s Mio Suemasa. Celine Gros was third. Highest-placed Brit was Fionn Griffiths in 12th.

Better news for the UK in the Junior categories, though. In the Junior Men David Young got fifth, while in the Junior Women Rachel Atherton got a fantastic second place behind New Zealand’s Scarlett Hagen (yes, we know we sent out a newsletter saying that there weren’t any British podium placings in the DH – oops).

Thanks to event sponsors Braun, you can check out the winning DH runs (and share Steve’s disappointment) at www.freecaster.com/mtb.

XC

More success in the Under-23 XC race, with Liam Killeen missing top spot by just four seconds from Manuel Fumic. Third placed Florian Vogel was over two minutes behind the hard-charging pair.

Rain and mud threatened to turn the senior XC races into a lottery, but in the end they threw up few surprises, with both newly-crowned Olympic champions repeating their success for a rainbow jersey. Gunn-Rita Dahle rode away from the field in characteristic style to become the first woman (and only the second rider) to win an Olympic gold, a rainbow jersey and the UCI World Cup series in the same year. Quite where she goes from here is anyone’s guess.

Thomas Frishknecht made the early running in the men’s race, the ex-cyclocrosser revelling in the sloppy conditions. But a chainsuck incident dropped him way down the field, leaving him a lot of work to do to get back in contention. Julien Absalon took advantage, moving into the lead ahead of Cedric Ravanel. The two of them held on to first and second until the finish, with Frishknecht just pipping a tiring Roel Paulissen for third.

Full results for all events at www.uci.ch.