Windham Gets #Gwinned While Missy Giove Returns

On a short, rowdy World Cup downhill track so dry and dusty it looks like the setting for the dirt blizzard segment from unReal, American Aaron Gwin followed through on his #1 seed hype and absolutely blew the men's downhill field out of the water, besting Greg Minaar by 3.5 seconds in race that was just over two and a half minutes long. Gwin must get a high from not touching his brakes, because there were some incredible displays of speed in that run!

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The women's field had just as much madness going down, with Rachel Atherton dominating the field is similar fashion, and Missy "The Missile" Giove–the Shaun Palmer of women's mountain biking, who ran shit on the downhill circuit in years past–coming more or less right off the couch, in jeans, having only practiced on rental bikes leading up to the race, and at age 43, still mangled a 17th place in qualifying. Word is that Giove returned to Windham on the encouragement of her partner, who, suffering from cancer, wanted to see her love in a World Cup downhill. Score one for love!