UCI Mountain Bike World Cup in Val Di Sole

See the Highlights from Val Di Sole, with some epic riding on this technical and challenging course.

Val di Sole  saw  dominating performances from the winners Rachel Atherton (GT Factory) who beat the rest of the women's field by nearly five seconds, while 2011 World Cup Champion Aaron Gwin (Trek World Racing) was almost eight seconds ahead of his nearest competitor in the men's race.

I still can't quite believe it," said Rachel Atherton.

The track here is so insane, it's so long and physical and wild. I knew that if I was going to win it I had to put everything on the line. I had a pretty good run and nearly crashed a few times, but you've just got to risk it, and I wanted to win.

Next the men's race saw Gwin throw down a tremendous challenge to the rest of the field by finishing over seven seconds ahead of second place Greg Minnaar.  Minnaar, the winner of round one and World Cup leader, had beaten Gwin just a week earlier at a warm up event in Austria, but this was clearly a different Gwin.

Gwin was the odds-on favorite as he began his run and the American champion did not disappoint; fastest at both intermediate splits by huge margins, he knocked more than six seconds off his qualifying time to win by 7.85 seconds, a staggering margin when Minnaar had beaten him by a mere 6.32 tenths of a second in the first round.  Gee Atherton (GT Factory) finished third, followed by team mate Marc Beaumont, with Cameron Cole (Lapierre International) in fifth.

"Ive been looking for a run like that for some time now," said Gwin.  

I couldn't be happier. I was pretty sure my quali time would hold, and even though the course here is super rough and dusty, I managed an almost clean run. Greg rode amazingly well on this track and is going to be tough competition for the remainder of the season.

 UCI DHI Women's Results.

1 Rachel Atherton (UK)

2 Myriam Nicole (FR)

3 Emmeline Ragot (FR)

4 Floriane Pugin (FR)

5 Morgane Charre (FR)

 UCI DHI Men's Results.

1 Aaron Gwin (USA)

2 Greg Minaar (RSA)

3 Gee Atherton (UK)

4 Marc Beaumont (UK)

5 Cameron Cole (NZ)

 Watch the stream of the race on demand in the video below.