If you've been following either the Hotlines or Nuke Proof twitter feed, you will already know that French Nuke Proof rider, Emmeline Ragot snapped up her first win of the World Cup season, in filthy conditions at Chapery, Switzerland. Here is her report from the event:
"World cup round 4 was last weekend at Champery in Swizerland. On the famous step and technical track… One of the more difficult tracks of the season. The organization worked pretty well on the track and added some more jumps and a walking path next the track for the spectators. This event was a repetition before the world championship next year.
We were afraid about the weather forecast saying that it would rain a lot for the week end, is not this kind of track we like when it’s muddy ;) The steepest track of the season was already hard to ride on the first day of training when it was dry.
Anyway, the first training was on Thursday, sunshine, good feeling on the track, but the bad weather came, it rained all the night, fog, thunder, lightning… Great.
The next day, Friday, the weather was still really bad, and they was talking about cancelling the qualification and training because that start would be dangerous, and especially with the mist for the medical helicopter. But finally after a meeting they decided to continue the race. The qualification was really hard with a track muddy like that, I think it was more muddy than Maribor (1st WC)… I finished 3rd after few crashes, the important point this week end was to be able stay on the bike.
It stopped to rain on Saturday, day of the race, so the mud start to be incredibly stiky, sometimes you wondered why your bike stopped when you were on such a steep hill and other times you wondered why you can’t stop or slow down at all, haha. I’m sure everyone crashed at some point this week.
I was 3rd last to leave the start house with only Sabrina Jonnier and Myriam Nicole behind me. The stress was there ;) but one of my biggest goal for this race was to not fall and I knew if I could do that there was a big chance for the podium or the win. And it’s what happened, I took the win for the first time of my career, it was a long wait but it was well worth it, the felling of that first world cup win is a great one! I’m jut glad all the hard work has finally paid off.
After this week end I have moved up in the world cup overall points standings to 3rd place, the next race is in Val di Sole (Italy) next week end."
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