Last Sunday the World Championships showed just how difficult they can be for even the best riders in the world. It’s a one shot deal and the weather and mountain can have a huge effect on a rider’s performance no matter how hard they’ve work for it. In the end it was a ride of pure brilliance by Danny Hart (GBR) in the Men’s, and a clean and aggressive run by Emmeline Ragot (FRA) in the Women’s, that took the titles.Unfortunately for all 4 of Trek World Racing’s downhill riders, crashes marred their runs on the drenched mountainside in Champery, Switzerland. The rain that was promising to show up on Sunday, arrived in abundance and made for a race of survival in the junior categories; and for very difficult riding for all others. Neko Mulally had qualified an easy 8th in Junior Men and was looking to step it up, but a crash early in his run that left him concussed put all hope of a medal aside. Neko didn’t suffer any serious injury in the final, but was still nursing a broken hand from earlier in the week.

Justin Leov was on a top 10 run when he crashed due to a vision problem with his goggles. It was very wet, the rain was pouring down, and vision was being compromised. Tracy Moseley crashed 3 times, the last one in spectacular fashion as she ran off course and into the crowd. Fortunately Tracy was not hurt, nor any spectators, and still managed a 9th place. Only 2 women got down the hill without a crash!

Fastest qualifier by 5 seconds and a strong chance for the win, Aaron Gwin was the last man to come down. At the first interval he was only 0.9secs behind Danny (who won by more than 11 seconds) but a small error ran Aaron off the track and hooked his Session 9.9 in the catch fencing costing valuable time. Aaron finished in 12th, clearly devastated by the run.

Despite Sunday September 4 not going the way of the team, all of the team members went to dinner that night and reflected on an amazing season, one that set many records. Aaron’s historic 5 World Cup wins, first team to win the Overall in Women’s and Men’s Downhill and be the number 1 team, and Tracy’s best ever season in her career.

Already the team management is planning 2012, but for now 23 Degrees Sports Management would like to sincerely thank all of the sponsors that made this season so great. Especially Trek for their incredible bikes and technology and on-site support, to Shimano for the componentry and the amazing proto-type equipment we’ve been offered to use, and Fox Racing Shox for simply being the best suspension out there. To JBL/Harman for the on-going support, as well as our other integral sponsors such as Kabuto Helmets, Royal Racing, FUNN, Gamut USA, SDG Components, Maxxis, Motorex, Isostar and Alpinestars. All of them have been key to our success. Roll on 2012!

Results for World Championships are here:

http://www.uci.ch/templates/BUILTIN-NOFRAMES/Template1/layout.asp?MenuId=MTYyMDg&LangId=1

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