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Rachel Atherton’s perfect season

Atherton won every World Cup. And then the World Champs. An unprecedented result.

Benjamin Haworth

No Downhill racer has ever won every round of World Cup Series before. Not Anne-Caroline Chausson, not Nico Vouilloz, not John Tomac, not Aaron Gwin. Only Rachel Atherton has done this.

Not only that, she went on to win the World Championship as well.

This utter domination secures Atherton racing legend status.

She may only be 28 years old – which seems a bit on the young side to be called a legend – but that is what she most definitely is.

Not only did she win each of the 7 rounds in 2016 but this last victory in Vallnord is her 13th consecutive World Cup win!

And not only that, she has now won the World Cup overall title five times.

Atherton had already technically already won the 2016 season before Vallnord took place but the pressure was still most definitely on to become the first Downhill racer to do the Perfect Season.

Atherton finished the 2016 season with 1700 points. In 2nd place was fellow Brit Manon Carpenter with 1140 points.

The Perfect season!!! 7 out of 7 World Cup Wins!!!! ?? ? I cannot believe it is real – never dreamed it possible, tried to not think about it & just race every race as its own thing. One step at a time. Yesterday was intense, there is always something to overcome in racing weather physical or mental & this track proved both!! What I love about racing is that once I am in that start gate : it brings out the best in me. Everything gets forgotten for those 5 minutes. It is the time when I come alive, and whatever has happened a switch flips and the race head takes over- it's incredible what you can do when you let your "inner self" take over & stop over thinking and over analysing. The last section of this track was SO HARD – arms burning and feeling like wooden sticks, the struggle to control your braking in the steeps so you could still let the bike roll, the burning pain in legs and arms just screaming at you to stop, the voice in your head telling you to push harder & ride faster against the voice telling you to slow down and not crash , the excitement when you can see finish line and know you've made it down the hill, the waiting in the hot seat for the last 2 girls, the realisation that you've won and THE PERFECT SEASON winning EVERY World Cup has happened for the first time in Downhill History and pure overwhelming feeling of dealing with that. Thank you to everyone My sponsors & team and family for being with me thru this journey!! #perfectseason #ucimtbworldcup @svenmartinphoto ??? #crazyfeeling

A post shared by Rachel Atherton (@rachybox) on

In other not quite so astounding news, Danny Hart won the men’s race at Vallnord but Aaron Gwin still comfortably took the overall series title.

Anyway, this year is about Rachel Atherton. Respect is due.