Leogang race weekend was a bit of a family reunion for mountain bike racing, it hosted downhill, cross country, enduro, and in a nod to four cross, it ran the XC racers on a portion of the old Leogang 4X track. And while it was great to have everyone together, the star of the show was MS Racing’s Oli Clark who won the Junior Men’s race aboard a Zerode G3 gearbox sled—the first World Cup win for a belt driven gear box bike.

Clark has been making his presence known this year with a third place finish in the first round of the World Cup, so when the Kiwi qualified first on Friday with a time of 3:03.326–edging out the junior men’s overall World Cup leader by 1.359 seconds—it was commendable but not surprising. The bigger question was could he back that up with a winning run in the final on Leogang’s diverse track? It’s a mix of roller coaster corners and high speed motorway track interspersed with a field of stumps and two steep, root-filled technical segments before dropping into the finishing straight. That kind of diversity of terrain with its broad extremes of high and low speed suspension forces can be tricky to set up properly for even the most experienced riders. But his VORO COIL shock/RUX fork equipped bike turned out to be the perfect tool for the diverse variety of terrain at Leogang.

Leaving the start shack last, Clark rode it like he stole it: he was second quickest on the first two splits, but turned it on in the third and fourth segments, coming from a half second behind at split one to a second and a half up at split four. Dropping towards the finishing corral he drifted one corner, making it a nail biter but coming home .6 seconds up for the win!

Needless to say, SR SUNTOUR is proud of our Kiwi youngster! He not only took the win, but also moved up to fourth overall in the juniors.

But it wasn’t all about Clark: SR SUNTOUR’s other young guns shined bright in Austria, as well, claiming podium spots in both the men’s and women’s U23 XCC and XCO races. Not to be outdone, Origine’s Mathis Azzaro came home sixth in XCC and fourth in the muddy slip and slide slug fest that was the XCO, while SR SUNTOUR had riders inside the top ten in both men’s and women’s elite DH, too.

Next up will be Val Di Sole. See you there!