USA! USA! USA! USA! USA!

Published: 02nd October 2007

Author: Pondo

Last week Team America dominated the MXdN as strongly as they ever have - as the off-season beckons, food for thought has most indubitably been served…

As a competitive event, the Peter Chamberlain trophy may as well have been given out after the qualifying races - the USA were utterly dominant both in practice and the qualifying races, and what little hope the rest of the world had evaporated as we watched. With BT injured and Cairoli and De Dycker having one of their off days, no-one else was going to come close to the home team - Ricky even handed the reins temporarily to Langston in the MX1 qualiy after a minor spill on lap two, before storming back to take the win from the first person to hold RC’s relinquished crown. In MX2, any hope of a three-way battle between RV, BT and AC disappeared, firstly when Ben had a scary crash on Henry Hill on Saturday morning, separating his shoulder and knocking himself and effectively Team NZ out of the event, and secondly when Tony came out at less than 100% - in GP terms, even a less than flat-out Cairoli would normally be plenty good enough to win, but Villopoto was on his day of days, and no rider on earth was going to beat him on this day.

There were highlights for the other countries - Keeno blew pretty hot when he wasn’t blowing cold, Chad had the outdoor ride of his life in his first race, Noble put up a stern defence as Team GB did one place better with two fit riders than they did with three last year. But let there be no doubt - Ricky hasn’t raced in months, Tim Ferry had a lot of doubters, and the team was missing James Stewart. Could you imagine the difference if Team USA was running at 100%…?

But the ‘07 des Nations is in the books now - what ifs don’t count for any more now than they did before the event. Team USA just owned the whole thing - anything suggesting otherwise is just making excuses…