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Siemens Snow King #2
Garmisch-Partenkirchen, February 1, 2004
Gracia takes second Snow King
Global Racing report
Global Racing's Matti Lehikoinen climbed onto the podium yesterday at the Siemen's Mobile Snow King event in Germany, finishing 3rd behind Cedric Gracia (FRA) and Guido Tschugg (GER). The race was held on the FIS World Cup Super G course in the famous resort town of Garmisch.
Almost immediately after the last Super-G skier had reached the finish line, 11 of the best downhill mountain bikers in the world raced down the world famous "Kandahar" slope. With speeds of more than 100 km/h the massed start field headed down the course for their very first time, as there are no chances to train on the course itself. Matti lead from the start and had the lead until one corner to go, where he ran wide and both Cedric and Guido slipped through.
"I was so bummed. I had the lead and thought I had the race won, but the hard thing about leading is that you can't always remember where the course markers are. You're going so fast on a course you've never ridden before and well, I just went a little wide. At these speeds when you go off line, you just hang on and get to the finish. I'm still pretty happy to be on the podium," said Matti straight after his race.
This is the first of two races counting towards an overall classification. The next race is on March 7th in Norway, where Matti will take his purpose built Orange 223 Snow King Special, to try and get even higher in the overall.
"After today I know I can win one of these! 4th in the first ever race in 2003, 3rd this time, so I'm chasing the top spot in Norway, that's for sure."
Thousands of spectators watched Gracia fly over the last icy meters of the course to snatch victory from Matti. His winning time was 1min 36secs compared to the Super-G-winner Hermann Maier (1min 18.09secs).
The podium result for Matti means that Global Racing has taken podium results for 4 race seasons. March 7th will see the lasting outing of the Global Racing colours for the time being as Matti races in the next and final Siemens Mobile Snow King in Kvitfjell (NOR). Soon after Matti will be seen in his new colours riding for 23 Degrees/Orange with support also coming in season 2004 from Truvativ components and SDG.
Results
1 Cedric Gracia (Fra) 1.36.13 2 Guido Tschugg (Ger) 1.37.05 3 Matti Lehikoinen (Fin) 1.37.17 4 Mickael Deldycke (Fra) 5 Oscar Saiz (Spa) 6 Marcus Klausmann (Ger) 7 Stefan Herrmann (Ger) 8 Arne Tschugg (Ger) 9 George Atherton (GBr) 10 Fabien Barel (Fra) 11 Ivan Oulego (Spa)
Local results 2004
