Thibaut Daprela and Amaury Pierron finished on the podium in the Elite Men’s category at the first event of the 2021 Downhill World Cup in Leogang (Austria).
The two French men’s downhill riders from the Commencal/Muc-Off team put on a great display in the first event of the UCI DH season, in which the young Thibaut Daprela claimed 2nd place, while Amaury Pierron finished in 3rd place, both using Galfer Bike brake components on the new Commencal Supreme DH bike prototypes. Amaury Pierron, who was returning to competition almost 2 years after a serious accident, rode an excellent descent and took control in the forest section, which allowed him to remain in the hot seat until the end of the competition. Only his team-mate Thibaut Daprela and the eventual winner Troy Bosnan managed to beat Pierron in the time trial. Daprela had the best initial split with an unbeatable speed, but he made a small mistake halfway around the circuit which caused him to lose valuable time. In the end, Daprela finished in second place, just over one second behind. Meanwhile, Spain’s Alex Marin (The Brigade) finished 32nd, Matteo Iniguez 40th, Antoine Pierron (Commencal-NOBL) 43rd and Dylan Levesque 45th. All of them use the oversize DB007W ø223mm Disc Wave® as well as Galfer Bike’s Pro G1554T, Advanced G1851 or G1652 brake pads depending on the conditions.
In the Elite women’s category, French rider Myriam Nicole (Commencal/Muc-Off) did not achieve her best performance due to two crashes in the final race and was only able to finish 8th. The same position was gained by Aina González (IJ Racing) in the Junior female category.
In the Cross-Country discipline, it is worth mentioning the podium finish in the Elite Men’s category for Milan Vader in the Short Track race on Friday and 6th place for Thomas Litscher in Sunday’s race, both from the KMC-Orbea team. Their team-mate Victor Koretzky ended the race in 9th position. This meant that the KMC-Orbea team once again claimed victory as the best team in the event for the second time this season.
In the Elite women’s category, Spain’s Rocío del Alba (BH Templo Cafés) had a good weekend and achieved a double top ten by finishing 9th on Friday and on Sunday. Her team-mate David Valero was in 17th place overall in the final standings of the race.
The next round of the UCI MTB World Cup will be held at Les Gets (France) on 2-4 July, where the two specialities of DH and XC will also be held.
