It was Tahnee Seagrave who took the win at Mont-Sainte-Anne, but Rachel Atherton thrilled the crowd with a heart-stopping few moments of going sideways in various directions, expertly managing to keep rubber side down. You can see the full run on Red Bull TV here, but Rachel has posted POV footage on her Instagram of the incredible, terrifying moment she almost crashed during her race run in Mont-Sainte-Anne:
https://www.instagram.com/p/BXgHM6sgr3o/
(No video showing up? Try this link instead).
“Re live my mid race swap on – can you see the loose rock I hit?!! ! All I thought was “I canNOT crash here its gunna hurt too bad!! But I couldn’t believe I was still on the bike, then hearing this rad crowd cheering when I was still on was so frickin rad!! a little shake of my head to show my displeasure & tried to crack on!. 5th place for me with a messy, hard & scary race day!! ”
Rachel came in fifth but was less than a second off the podium – while it’d be easy for anyone to frame this as having cost her a podium, imagine how much more time a crash would have taken off. Sniper rocks happen to us all, but few of us have the skill to keep it together in these kind of circumstances.
Rachel hasn’t quite dominated the downhill World Cup this year, largely due to a dislocated shoulder that prevented her from racing at Fort William. Speaking of which, while looking around at stuff yesterday, we also found this interview by Si Patton of the British Downhill Series, in which she talks in detail about her shoulder, how it’s affected her over the years, and some of the things she’s learned about popping it back in and recovery.
[fbvideo link=”https://www.facebook.com/BritishDownhillSeries/videos/10155447745835119/” width=”650″ height=”400″ onlyvideo=”1″]
(No video? Here’s a link).
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HONK HONK HONK Ow my earoles!
Not sure if it’s great advice. The second time I dislocated my shoulder I also cracked the my humerus. If I’d have tried to put it in myself it would have caused more damage.