The World Cup circus rolled into Willingen, Germany at the weekend for the first three-way (XC, DH, 4X) event of the year. Short courses and unpredictable weather made for close racing…

XC

The Willingen XC course was short, so lap counts were high – seven for the women, nine for the men. If that sounds a bit cyclo-crossish, the terrain was even more so – steep, gravelly climbs, lots of fire road, not very much singletrack.

It didn’t faze Gunn-Rita Dahle (Multivan-Merida), although her winning margin of 39seconds over second-placed Sabine Spitz wasn’t as healthy as she’s used to – she had to work hard for this one. Marie-Helene Premont was in third, 2:20 down on Dahle. With three wins and a second place so far, Dahle has a comfortable lead in the overall standings with 950 – Premont and Spitz are battling it out for second and third with 770 and 720 respectively.

With series leader Julien Absalon apparently recovered from the illness that put him well down the field in Round 3 at Houffalize, and Houffalize winner Marco Bui apparently in the ascendant, the stage was set for a grand showdown. But it was World Cup Champ Christoph Sauser who upped the pace halfway through the race – only Bui could stay with him, but he couldn’t stay there for the rest of the race, with Sauser winning by 20seconds. Absalon’s third place meant that Sauser takes the lead in the overall standings. Britain’s Liam Killeen just missed out on a podium place in 6th – he’s lying 8th overall.

4X

There’s not much to say about the 4X – the electronic start gate packed up part-way through the heats, they couldn’t fix it, none of the riders wanted to race without a proper gate and the men’s event was, in the end, cancelled. There was a women’s event of sorts in amongst all the confusion, although it didn’t feature all of the riders and was, by all accounts, a bit farcical. For what it’s worth, Anneke Beerten was the winner.

DH

The XC racers were up to Round 4 at Willingen, but it was only the second outing for the DHers and the first for Anne-Caroline Chausson. The freshly-built course featured sizable jumps at the top, gravel-surfaced trails in the middle and grassy slopes at the bottom, and wet weather during practice made things heavy going. It was, then, little surprise that Chausson took the win by 4.5seconds from Emmeline Ragot. Vanessa Quin was third, Rachel Atherton fourth and Round 1 winner Sabrina Jonnier fifth. Jonnier retained the overall series lead, with Atherton second.

Notably absent in the men’s race was Round 1 winner Steve Peat – he bust his shoulder practising for the 4X Nationals a couple of weeks ago. Honda riders Greg Minnaar and Matti Lehikoinen found themselves battling adversity when their race bikes were stolen the day before the race – the mechanics managed to assemble new bikes from parts just in time.

After a crash in the semi-finals, it was Britain’s Dan Atherton who made the early running. He was the 21st rider down, posted a 2:23.04 and then sat in the hot seat as the rest of the field came down the hill. When it started to rain it looked like he had his first World Cup win in the bag – Rennie, Kovarik, Gracia and brother Gee couldn’t catch him. But Greg Minnaar could – he’d been sessioning the big jumps at the top of the course and made up enough time over them to build a buffer for the slippier and slower lower sections, coming in 3.45 ahead of Atherton.

Minnaar is now the series leader on 430 points, a fair way clear of Sam Hill (295) and Nathan Rennie (278). Peat holds on to fourth and may be back in action for Round 4, while both Athertons are in the top ten.