Men Elite Downhill Highlights - 2024 UCI Mountain Bike World Championships

Next rider out, Benoit Collonge of France hits the Slice. He's the penultimate Frenchman. He's one of the fastest French guys out there that kind of always flies under the radar. You don't always realize just how quick this guy is. Yeah, he's definitely putting together a really nice run here. Oh, yeah. 0.75 up. Really we're in that left-hand turn where we've seen people go inside the net. He took the outside line and pedaled out of it really quick. He's very fast onto the pedals. They're getting that drive, getting the power down. Can he continue to extend his lead from 0.078 to 0.78? As he came down between splits one and two, comes into split threes up again. He's getting more momentum. Can he build on that? Will he have lost enough to push it down out of first place? He's still holding it, but he has lost time. Has he lost momentum as well? He's gone from over a second up to less than half a second up on Danny Hart. Here he comes down into these lower slopes. This is the last section before we come out of the woods. You can see the crowds around. They're going to be cheering him on as he comes down. It's going to be close at the line. What's it going to be? The last few pedals until he dies for the line. He makes it by 0.135. A new leader at the finish line. Benoit Collonge, he knows he's done a good run. What a result. This is a man who is definitely ready for an elite award. Some people saw him in practice on the course. Very focused. A man who now needs to prove it as an elite rider. Now he was in touch at split number one. He was within a couple of seconds. The race leader at this point. So he's got to keep pushing. And it looks like he's carrying some fantastic speed into this section. So through a split at number three he goes. He's gone past the second barrier. It's 1.022. A pensive looking Collonge. At the finish gate down on the hot seat. He does ride to be pensive though. Focused up there. I think Amaury Pirro meanwhile realised that his time is limited. But coming in now. How's he looking, Tracy? It looked like he had to do way more kind of pumping. Hard to tell. There wasn't much pedalling going on. So maybe that was deceptive. But lost a little bit of time again in there. Not all over but that is going to be tight now. He's lost nearly a second. As he goes through there. It was literally two thousandths of a second that he had lost. And that is a crazy kind of time. And lose a second at that point. He's got to keep pushing. Will he be able to slot in front? This is going to be close. He's got to keep pedalling his way to that line. It's close. It's close. But it's not close enough. Two hundredths of a second off. Taking top spot. Finals first into second place. Lloris at Vergier. The rider who took a bronze medal in 2022 at Léger. Can he add a different colour today? Can he add a medal to his collection? He needs to get a good start here today. We've seen how critical it is. He's got to keep this pace now. Not make any mistakes as he comes down and in. That was a lovely smooth transition there into that rock garden. After a really fast start, you've got to kind of keep that pace but not override it. I think Lloris is always known for being such a smooth rider and he's never, ever countered on whatever the course. He's got all the skills he needs. The time, he's got to beat 1.23532 at this speed. Does so by 0.513 of a second. He's up. Can he keep this going? Two splits down. Two splits and a finish to go. He's got to want to keep on accelerating through. That was smooth through there as well. I think he managed to miss that rock quite inside of it. Dropping into here, carrying a nice speed. He's just got to keep that pace now because it doesn't feel like he's carrying quite the speed that Benoit did here, but we're soon going to see whether we get the next split. He's lost time. You're dead right there, Tracy. 0.105. He's lost time between those two splits, between split two and three. Back on the pedals. Has he lost time? I think he's lost a little bit more. Interesting line there. I do feel like he had to put some pedals on, yeah, and he's lost the advantage he had. It's not entirely over yet, but he's going to have to have the best section through these woods that anyone has had so far to gain that time back. So is this going to be the best bottom section? He's on the limit, but is he going quick enough? This is going to be where it counts. What can he do? He'd lost a little bit of time. He was almost in touch, but you can see the clock is ticking. He goes quickest. He does pull the fastest time on the bottom. How did he make that back into the hotspot? We have a new leader. What can Rooney do here today? The man sitting in second place overall at five titles to his name. The man who you've seen preparing at the top of the hill now into this upper section. The first split here will be absolutely critical. This is a man who makes smooth look smooth, and here we go, 0.2 up already. So Rooney on his way down, takes a wide line, pedals out again, absolutely on the edge of that berm, really tucking it underneath the vertical edge of it over the top there, and the 0.697 at the moment. This is going to be as close as they come down. The splits at times are telling us that this is going to be right up to the edge of our season. Coming to split number three, he's still looking smooth. He looks so delicate. Oh, he's killing it. Oh, no, no, no. He's come down, he's come down. He took so much time. He went to 1.8 of a second up. He has gone down. He has hit the floor. He's all over. Loris Vergier, along with Benoit Coluche, cannot believe it. That they are the current medalists at the World Championships, and that Loris Vergier is the world champion.