Andrew Neethling

Schladming, Austria: Sep 2009

The World Cup Season finished off with an exciting race in Schladming, Austria. Everyone was treated to a great overall title race and a first time World Cup winner.
Coming into the finals I was sitting in 11th Place overall. I had a chance to get into the Top 10 but also had 12th-14th placed riders very close behind me. I knew my work was cut out as these riders are strong here.
The course is one of the best on the circuit. It is rough, fast and has a great mix of what makes a great track. Rain came the day and night before the race making for some slippery wood sections.

I wanted to put a good qualifying run together but feel I played it too safe and made some mistakes. I rested up for the finals and John, took care of the bike. We headed up for final and I wanted to try and make up for my quali run and finish off the season strongly.
I went hard out of the gate and was really pushing it, I made a big mistake about 30 sec in which bummed for out for a bit but I think it made me push it even harder after that. I was not sure what sort of run I was putting together as I was having some moments but kept pushing. I felt strong at the bottom and crossed the line to take the hot seat. It was a bit of a wait to see where I would end up but watching the race unfold was great.

I eventually would finish 10th. I was super happy with that as have not had the best races here in the past. I managed to get ahead of all riders I needed to in the final but did not gain enough points on 10th Place overall and thus ended 11th overall for the season. My goals coming into this season were for top 10 overall so I am happy to just about achieve that.

Greg Minnaar managed to take the overall title and Sam Blenkinsop won his first World Cup.

Thanks to everyone involved in making this a great season.

Andrew Neethling
www.andrewneethling.com
Team Mongoose
Oakley
THE
Dylan Dean Designs
Alpinestars

This entry was posted on Sunday, September 14th, 2008 at 10:38 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.