There’s just four days to go until the first race in the 2016 downhill World Cup season and battle lines are being drawn. There have to be two big favourites to take the title this year: the current World Champion, Loic Bruni, and the current World Cup champion, Aaron Gwin.

It seems that Bruni knows he could be in a fierce battle for the title too and has already started trash-talking Gwin. At 1:02 in this video from 661 he is asked what he thinks of Aaron Gwin and he replies with one simple word, “slow”.

Of course, there’s an added edge to the rivalry this year given that Bruni is now riding the bike that Gwin was so successful on last year. We’re not sure if this exchange will affect Gwin’s performance in any way, after all he seems to be one of the mentally toughest riders on the circuit, but it shows Bruni’s confidence is sky high aboard his new ride.

Come Sunday the talking will have to stop and the ticking of the clock will be the loudest thing on the hill as Bruni and Gwin throw down on the Lourdes race track. Who do you think will come out on top?