Two International Podiums for TWR Over the Weekend
Results just in from Sunday's racing find both Andrew Neethling and Lukas Flueckiger on podiums at their repsective international races in Germany.
Lukas Flueckiger
TWR was racing both the Wheels Of Speed in Willingen, as well as the Bundesliga XC in Albstadt.
Luk raced his Top Fuel, running Bontrager XR3 Tires on his XXX carbon rims, at a course that is notorious for being one of the hardest climbing courses on the international circuit. The "Bullentle" Climb is very steep, crowded with spectators and fans. The course also contained steep and tricky downhills that remained pretty dry and fast on Saturday training, but during the night the rain came and transformed the course to a muddy and slippery affair for Sunday's race. Many of the world's top 10 riders were on the start line, including Ralph Naef, Florian Vogel, Moritz Milatz, and Wolfram Kurschat.
Luk said: "The start was again really fast and after the 300m straight on a long and steep uphill I was suffering a little. For the first 2 laps of 7 I had very bad legs and felt the training work from the last 2 weeks in my body. I lost a lot of time in those first laps. After the first 2 bad laps I was 1min 30secs behind the leaders. But I started to feel stronger and stronger, and started to catch riders. On the last lap I was in 3rd place, just 1min behind Vogel and Milatz. I tried using all my power to catch Vogel and Milatz as I felt pretty strong, but the race was one lap too short for me. I finished 3rd, only 40secs behind the winner Moritz and 8secs behind Vogel. For this race, and considering my training, I was very happy with the result."
Meanwhile, over at Willingen Andrew and Justin were racing the richest Downhill race on the circuit. With close to $10,000 for the winner, and healthy pay for the top 10, this was a good race for stretching the legs before this weekend's World Cup in Leogang (AUT).
Qualifying had Andrew in a solid 5th and Justin further back, but Justin was sure he could make up time for the final:
1. Gee Atherton 1.56.51
2. Nick Beer 1.58.07
3. Aaron Gwin 1.58.15
4. Steve Smith 1.58.27
5. Andrew Neethling 1.58.76
20. Justin Leov 2.02.20
For the final both riders stepped it up and Justin found himself in the hotseat after taking a massive 9 seconds off his quaifier, but was soon unseated by Dan Atherton. Fastest qualifier Gee Atherton punctured and 2nd fastest qualifier Nick Beer crashed out on the top of the course. Andrew took nearly 8 seconds off his qualifier to score yet another great international podium.
Andrew said: "I'm pretty happy with how I rode, I really nailed the middle section. It's super close racing here so it could have been anyone's win. Of course I would have liked to have won, but I lost some speed at the finish on the last corner and I guess that's where that 1 second went."
1. Aaron Gwin 1.50.06
2. Gerg Minnaar 1.50.26
3. Andrew Neethling 1.50.99
4. Dan Atherton 1.51.69
5. Filip Polc 1.52.03
12. Justin Leov 1.53.24
This weekend Neko Mulally rejoins the team for World Cup DH #3. It's not 100% sure he will ride, but he's back over in Europe now through to the end of July and will be back racing during that time.
