Adam Persson took top place in today's qualifying. The likeable Swede saved his best shot for the very last run of the day, beating the course record convincingly with a time of 2:21.994. Second place went to Dillon Stephens with Patrick Switzer rounding out the top three.
Rain on qualifying day has to be a race director's worst nightmare. There is no way that you can keep everyone happy, some riders relish the prospect of ripping through the water spray others hate it and don't want anyone else to ride either. So it happened today at Kozakov. After a blisteringly hot second day the day set aside for timed runs dawned cool and damp.
Race officials pressed ahead with the day's planned qualification runs and at lunch time, when drier conditions started to prevail, more and more riders ventured out on to the warming asphalt.
An early lead was taken by Alex Tongue but by run five times were starting to tumble and the lead qualifying position changed many times.
An early, most impressive, time was put up by Australian 'grom' Connor Ferguson who posted a blisteringly quick third run of 2:32.129 putting him seventh place in the open class, way ahead of other juniors. He retained top place in the junior section by improving his time throughout the day and finished in 21st spot.
In Street Luge Mikel Echagaray Diez smashed the course record with a wet run time of 2:18:079. and then went on to improve his time with a stunning run of 2:15.750 as conditions improved.
Despite early indications that Marisa Nunez would show a strong hand it was Marie Bougard who qualified first with a rapid last run of the day. Tamara Prader takes second place with Swiss Jolanda Vogler securing third place.
The new timing system has been warmly received on the IDF European tour. Working faultlessly after exhaustive testing the sophisticated TAG Heuer system allowed 4 timed runs in the morning, and 3 in the afternoon. In past years it was only possible to achieve two runs in a day.
Results are posted on site immediately and it was extremely rewarding to see the swarm of riders around the newly posted results. Riders are working much more tactically now choosing which runs to take part in depending upon past results and atmospheric conditions.
Tomorrow will see riders race out brackets B and C in open downhill.
