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MOUNTAIN BIKING

NZ Downhill Podiums Austria and Italy

Tuesday 21 June 2011, 9:55AM

By Mountain Bike New Zealand

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Scoles Abetone
Scoles Abetone Credit: Mountain Bike New Zealand
Scoles Abetone Podium
Scoles Abetone Podium Credit: Mountain Bike New Zealand

Matt Scoles wins at Italian Cup, Abertone, Pistoia
Alexandra's finest mountainbike export, Matt Scoles won the Abetone round of the Italian Cup on Sunday. The Cingolani-Trek athlete, based in Italy for the second year with his professional team has been a consistent top 20 competitor at this season's World Cup events, and demonstrated his pace and always improving form to demolish the Elite field at Abetone by a massive eight seconds,

Full Results Italian Cup, Abetone


MacDonald, Brannigan 2nd and 3rd at iXS European Cup, Leogang, Austria
Brook MacDonald (MS Evil Racing, Napier) and George Brannigan (Devinci Global, Hawkes Bay) stayed on in Austria after last weekends World Cup to compete at the iXS European Downhill Cup. MacDonald has been having a stellar season already this year with a breakthrough podium 3rd at the Fort William World Cup, and the 2009 Junior World Champion is also targeting a series win in the high quality iXS series. MacDonald had a huge jump on the field after seeding, and went into the race run as the last starter and fastest seed. But by the slimmest of margins had to settle for second place to a storming run by Australian Junior Troy Brosnan. MacDonald now leads the iXS European Cup with three rounds to go.

Brannigan has been having an up and down season in Europe so far, with a new team and trying to come to grips with the transition from the Junior ranks into Elite. Brannigan seeded reasonably well, but put together a fast, smooth and importantly, clean race run to slot into third place behind MacDonald, a result that will serve him well leading into the next World Cup event at Mont Sainte Anne in Canada at the start of July.

Also competing at Leogang was Nelson Junior Nick Bygate on his debut international start, finishing 52nd. Tom Matthews (Christchurch) had a very slow seeding run, and did not start the final. The iXS Series is growing in stature through every event, with 26 countries represented, and 356 competitors on the Leogang start list.

Full Results Leogang iXS European Cup