A spectacular weekend of racing in Lenzerheide for the South African riders. The beautiful Swiss town hosted with a rider favourite downhill track and plenty of excitement from the XCO side of things. Big results from Alan Hatherly and Greg Minnaar, moments that we’ll have on repeat for a while!
What is XCO and Downhill?
If you’re new to mountain biking, but keen on all of the action then allow us to briefly explain what you’ll see in the below videos.
First up, XCO is short for Cross-Country Olympics and it is a UCI mountain biking race where riders have to complete several laps on a dirt-based circuit. The circuit more often than not have super technical terrain and with riders starting together, it’s a battle for first place from beginning to end. If you want to learn more about this exciting from of racing then check out this very detailed article from Red Bull here.
Downhill mountain biking on the other hand is very different. For starters, each rider goes down individually where their time is taken and they are placed according to their time. They also don’t sprint around a circuit, but instead start high up on a mountain to which they race down a single, technical track as fast as they can. South African, Greg Minnaar, is known as the GOAT of Downhill because of how many championships he has won.
