Last weekend the World Cup series 4X and Downhill Mountainbike kicked off in Maribor Slovenia. The weather was good, the Cannondale team perfect, and the track challenging. What else can you ask for.

Practice went good for Joost, his gates were good, and he had no big problems on the track. During the qualification Joost had a solid run, with a small mistake at the hipjump. This costed him some time but he still got the 9th qualification time. Dan Atherton did an impressive job, by winning the qualifications.

Race time! In the 1/16 finale Wichman took the holeshot and brought it home easily, in the 1/8 Joost was up to Cedric Garcia. Wichman took the holeshot, but made a mistake in the 2nd turn by clipping out off his pedal, Cedric and Joost came side by side out of turn 2, before the big step-up jump they came in contact with each other and Joost went over the handlebars. End of the race for Joost.

In the finale it was Alvarez against 2 Germans and Slavik from Czech. Alvarez took the holeshot and did not had any problems during this finale. Congrates to him for his first World Cup win!

Results:

Men (110 riders)
1th Alvarez
2nd Guido Schugg
3rd Johannes Fischbach

Women (16 riders)
1st Anneke Beerten
2nd Anita Molchik
3rd Vanessa Buhl

Joost his next race will be the 25th of May at the IXS Dirtmasters Festival in Winterberg. After this race he and the Cannondale team will be heading for World Cup 2 in Andorra.