ᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚ𒀱ᩚᩚᩚGee and Rachel Atherton, brother and sister, celebrate both winning the first 2013 Downhill World Cup in Fort William (Image credit: Tour of Japan)
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Gee Atherton (GT Factory Racing꧋) on his way to winning the Fort William downhil🌺l World Cup (Image credit: Tour of Japan)
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Rachel Atherton (GT Factory Racing) on her way to a win at the 🐠Fort William Worl♎d Cup (Image credit: Tour of Japan)
While it's not surprising for Rachel and Gee to win a major downhill on the same day, it was by no means a given. Rachel had never previously 💮won her home World Cup round in Fort William, but she got the day and the 2013 World Cꦐup series off to a raging start by winning the elite women's race by over 10 seconds.
"Fort William is ridiculously hard. I've qualified first a few times here and you can't let your guard down," said Rachel to Redbull.tv after her winning run. She had qualif𝓡ied fastest on Saturd🐬ay.
"This 🌄is one I've never been able to win. All the way down the track, people are saying your name and it's hard to concentrate. Finally, I crossed the line here and heard cheering and not groaning."
Gee raced down the mountain as the second last man and se🧸t the fastest time to move into the hot seat, but fastest qualifier Danny Hart (Giant) was still to go. However, Hart failed to come close to Gee's time, and Gee got to celebrate his first Fort William World Cup win in three years.
"It's been awhile since I've won here. For me, it doesn't get better than this," Gee told Redbull.tv. "It was a good, smooth run. I couldn'🌊t have asked for a better run, really.ꩲ"
"I'm stoked to start the World Cup series like thisཧ. Bring it on, I say."
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