For a reasonably flat island, Great Britain produces some fast downhill racers. British riders Steve Peat (Orange) and Fionn Griffiths (Foes) swept to victory in their respective downhill events today at the Mont -Ste-Anne World Cup. The new 1.2km course made for brief races and left little margin for error.

Peat, who missed most of the early season with a wrist injury, scored his first win of 2003 with a scintillating final run that evicted South Africa’s Greg Minaar (Haro-Lee Dungarees) from the leader’s hot seat by a scant .06 second.

“I’ve won here twice before so I definitely like the course,” said the burly Englishman after his win. “They took out a lot of the technical sections, which made it quick and didn’t let you make mistakes.”

The men’s racing was marred by several serious crashes off the massive kicker jump in the final 200 meters. Australia’s Johnny Waddell had the worst wreck, slamming into the ground at full speed from a height of 30 feet. He was taken from the course still unconscious. Details of his condition were not immediately available

Fionn Griffiths scores her first World Cup win.

Photo: Chris Milliman

The 20-year-old Griffiths, who started racing on the World Cup circuit when she was only 17, scored her first World Cup win at the expense of top women’s qualifier Tracy Moseley (Kona-Clarks), whose final run came up a scant 0.12 second short of Griffith’s mark. Griffiths gained her advantage on the lower half of the dusty course, after the topside single-track blossomed into wide-open sweepers.

“I had a couple mistakes in the woods so I knew I had to go really hard on the lower section,” she said.

Both Griffiths and Peat will vie for another World Cup win in tonight’s four-cross event.