Downhill racing legend Rachel Atherton has announced a comeback as part of a team dubbed Continental-Atherton Racing.

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By ben_haworth

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Rachel returns to racing

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Fair play, didn’t think she’d come back, would not bet against her

Absolutely brilliant news. I think it’ll take a couple of races, bit she’ll be well on the pace soon.

Catherine Pendrel raced world cup XC after her baby, as far as I know nobody has ever done so in DH.

This season we’ve got:
Rachel, Myriam, Seagrave, Vali, Camille and Hoffman who’ve all won races in the past and all fingers crossed doing a full season.
Anybody I’ve forgotten?

Marine Cabirou

Looking forward to seeing this, I hope she does well on the comeback. Could be a good mix up this year with all the contenders in DH, should be a great season

Be good to see Rach back racing – T-Mo hasn’t done too bad either after having a baby in the E-EWS etc. so wouldn’t rule Rach out later in the season.

Be interesting to see how Jimbo does – he was impressive at Hardline – more Brits on the WC circuit can’t be a bad thing.

Gee is a machine – watching his rehab & workout routine on insta etc. the bloke is so focused – I’d have just packed it all in after that crash!!

Excellent news

Great news and I really hope she does well. My cynical side tells me it’s more about having “Atherton Bikes” at the world Cup races as I can’t see them selling many without a few podiums or wins at Elite level.

Totally off topic. That team pic makes me think we’re very close to full blown top to toe lycra

My cynical side tells me it’s more about having “Atherton Bikes” at the world Cup races as I can’t see them selling many without a few podiums or wins at Elite level.

I’m sure there’s an element of that, but she is fiercely competitive and has probably been watching RedBull TV and thinking “I could still beat that lot”.

Fascinated to see how she fares.

When she announced she was expecting, I guessed that would be it for her racing career (and even said so on STW). Not because Baby=end of sports, or Mums should do high risk sports or anything like that. I considered her age, the injuries she’d suffered and long recoveries and of course how much ‘maternity leave’ she’d probally need/want and a guess of how much time she’d need to devote to Atherton Bikes etc. I’m glad my guess was wrong.

It’ll be interesting to see how it all goes. STW write of course that the first chance we’ll see is Lourdes in March, I think UCI points are only good for 12 months, so will she have to race elsewhere first to qualify? I remember Peaty coming back for 1 last season after a year off for injury and struggled to get enough points to race WCs. She’s missed 2 full seasons of WC racing and 36, whilst far from old, is old enough to make a ‘come back’ hard work, but if anyone can…

Totally off topic. That team pic makes me think we’re very close to full blown top to toe lycra

Most WC riders have been wearing ‘tight’ race kit for a few years now. Bodysuits are still banned by mutual agreement though, brands still want to sell stuff to the rest of us, but the pros kit is tailored for aero.

When she announced she was expecting, I guessed that would be it for her racing career (and even said so on STW).

I believe that I said she’d come back, just because she’ll still think she can win.

But in the meantime I’d kind of changed my mind, so this is a lovely surprise.

I believe that I said she’d come back, just because she’ll still think she can win.

But in the meantime I’d kind of changed my mind, so this is a lovely surprise.

I’d find the original thread, but my buttocks are still warm from the beating I got for saying she’d retire, it seemed to trigger a lot of people until I gave my ‘long version’ explanation, which I was sure to repeat above!

I also thought that’d be it for her racing, as much from a “DH? Completed it, mate” perspective as anything else.

It’ll be fascinating to see her racing again though, assuming she does indeed end up back on the WC circuit (I think I read something about doing some UK nationals first to see how she goes on).

Even more excited for the season to start now 🙂

That’s my one fear, that she won’t show up unless she’s convinced she can win. So if she has teething problems at the nationals…