AUST. NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP Stromlo, Canberra 27.01.2007
1 Jared Graves 3:19.86
2 Nathan Rennie 3:22.05
3 Jared Rando 3:24.21
4 Filip Polc 3:24.56
5 Amiel Cavalier 3:24.93
8 Sam Hill 3:27.04 (crashed near finish)
Spy Optic’s Sam Hill (Monster/Iron Horse) stepped up and took it to the world’s best downhill mountain bike racers this past weekend in Slovenia, winning the Nissan UCI World Cup DH season opener at Maribor.
Hill, the defending World Cup downhill champ, tuned up for the Maribor opener by thoroughly dominating a UCI mandated test event in Val Di Sole (Italy) in the days leading up to the World Cup DH opener. Hill’s five-second win over rival Steve Peat at Val Di Sole definitely set the tone for what was going down last weekend in Slovenia.
Said Hill of his test run in Italy: “My run in the final was OK. The track has lots of line choices, it’s technical and a lot of fun, but this can make it really hard to get a perfect run on it. I thought it was cool to have this warm up race to see where my race speed is before heading into the first World Cup round.”