The first UCI World Cup of the season kicked off this week in Pietermaritzburg South Africa. The GT Bicycles team of Marc Beaumont, Mick Hannah and Kevin Aiello along with mechanics Mark Maurissen and Terry Chanethomvong and team manager Steve Spencer have spent the last week training and testing on the new GT Fury downhill bike. A lot of excitement and talk has surrounded the new full carbon racing frame and the team is out to show that the bike is the wave of the future in downhill racing.
A new format for the downhill had qualifying on Friday and finals on Sunday so the team prepared for the elimination round in hopes of a top result for a finals seat and to acquire the much sought after UCI points. Marc had a successful season in 2008 giving him an early start in the qualifiers while those with lesser results from the previous year of were new to the circuit had to start later. Kevin is the fresh new rookie on the team so he would be start towards the back of the pack as well as Mick Hannah. Mick is not a newcomer to the World Cup scene but did take a year off from racing so he is basically an unranked rider coming into this event. There has a great deal of talk surrounding Mick