Hagen, Rankin storm home for first round win Round One, Subaru South Island Downhill Cup, 4-5 January 2008, Coronet Peak

The Central Otago sun bet down on Scarlett Hagen (Elite Women) and Nathan Rankin (Elite Men) this weekend as they turned up the intensity to score wins in the first round of the Subaru South Island Downhill Cup series.

An ex New Zealand representative, Rankin (Levin) had reportedly retired from competitive mountain biking but managed a fantastic race run narrowly beating the Yeti team rider Justin Leov (Christchurch) into second place by less than a second. Hagen (Queenstown) took a comfortable first win from Dunedin based rider Sheryl MacLeod by 12 seconds. Competition in the under 19 Men’s category was also fierce, with Brook MacDonald taking the title in a time that was sixth fastest over the whole field.

The purpose built mountain bike tracks on the tussock slopes of Coronet Peak were full of mountain bikers during the two days of competition in hot still weather conditions. It was one of the biggest fields seen at a Mountain Bike New Zealand downhill race with 265 competitors entered, with some from as far away as Auckland, Australia, Austria and the UK. Over the last two years Coronet Peak have been investing in their summer mountain bike operation and the large numbers of riders during the weekend attest to the quality of the tracks and facilities.

During the next week, riders will continue to hone their skills on the Coronet tracks which remain open to the public. The next round of the Subaru South Island Downhill Cup is scheduled for another high altitude venue - Dirt Park (Pisa Range), Wanaka 8-9 January, before continuing up the island to the final round in Nelson on 12-13 January.

Why didn't Sam Blenkinsop Race?

Because this track has heaps of jumps and he would just do a filthy whip over every single one and win by 20 seconds, and they just decided that would be way too unfair so they didn't let him race

lolz

Well done everyone, sounded like a cracker event and conditions

Congrats Faux_Name on your win!

Hazzbrown wrote: Why didn't Sam Blenkinsop Race?

the word round the campfire was because he signed for yeti & they didn't have a bike ready for him & he was not allowed to ride his turner

Hi all, if you're after pics from here or Dirtpark check out
http://www.murraythompsonphotography.co.nz

if theres anyhthing u like use the contact link to contact me and we can discuss prices. All pics are displayed as low resolution, all images can be cropped to how u want and can be cleaned up if required.

Cheers.

well the orders are rolling in, none from here which is of no surprise, pays to hand out the business cards at these events.