Lourdes 2017 was a race of serious significance for the world of downhill. In the French pilgrim town, the sport was shown a vision of the future as the Syndicate turned up with 29 inch wheels for the first time. Grey clouds overhead reflected the mood in the pits as teams looked on enviously at this new technological innovation and whispered conspiratorially about a Judas-like betrayal of the sport’s values and history.
The weekend marked nearly 2 decades since a French DH rider won a World Cup on home soil and, when Vergier went fastest by 0.5 in qualifying, it looked like he may have been the rider to break that record. However, it was another rider who would scoop it away from him – Alex Fayolle. Fayolle had picked up his first-ever podium at the previous World Cup and looked to have put down a scorcher in finals in Lourdes, just 0.1 off Vergier’s qualifying time. Almost as soon as he crossed the line, holy water fell from the skies with a vengeance and the limestone track turned slicker than ice in an instant. 10 riders were still in the start gate but the race was clearly Fayolle’s as the live feed showed the sport’s fastest squirming and sliding over a film of slick mud.
Fayolle isn’t the first rider to have been gifted a World Cup win by the rain but it quickly became an albatross around his neck and he was unable to ever find that pace again. Earlier this offseason, he described it as a “stolen victory” and now, just two seasons later, he’s leaving full time racing behind to run a privateer program, splitting his time between downhill e-MTB racing. We caught up with Fayolle to get his thoughts on that fateful afternoon and his new start.
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