Leov Wins Pro GRT Final at Lake Placid Pro GRT, New York

Justin Leov (Trek World Racing, Dunedin) completed his 2010 northern hemisphere season in style, winning the final round of the US Pro GRT Series at the Whiteface Mountainbike Park, Lake Placid on Monday.

While always being a top ten World Cup contender this year Leov has had a difficult season, and has had to rebuild form after a serious accident at Champery at the end of June. One slight mistake at the World Championships in Mont Sainte Anne, Canada last weekend left Leov stranded in 14th after it looked like his form rebuild would take him all the way to the podium. So one final race in the US before returning to Dunedin for the NZ summer gave Leov the opportunity to pull a confidence boosting result. Leov delivered in style on the long, technical Whiteface Pro GRT downhill course, destroying the field in qualifying and then replicating that result in the final, to win by a commanding 11 seconds.

Kieran Bennett (DRD Tomac, Nelson) was also racing at Lake Placid, and like Leov, needed a good result to return to NZ with after a string a bad luck on the US Pro GRT circuit and at last weekend's World Championships. Bennett had a shocker in qualifying, and was last man down the hill. However, the Nelson flier is an experienced hand at salvaging positives out of disappointment, and put together a solid race run to claim 10th place in the quality field.

Brief Results
1 Justin Leov (NZL) 7:44.39; 2 Andrew Neethling (RSA) +11.12; 3 Neko Mullaly (US) +18.96; 10 Kieran Bennett (NZL) +30.87

Results