Charlie Hatton, King of the Downhill World

Just a snipped form a recent chat with Charlie Hatton, the current Downhill World Champ, who happens to live in my old hood.

ST; Self pre-race evaluation?

CH; There was a lot of people asking me if I was going to go for a win or a medal, but I don’t think that added pressure on myself. Obviously, I’m going do my best, 100%, and I know I can do well here – let’s see what happens. I qualified second in the World Cup there 2 years before, and in the national round there earlier in the year (with mostly top world cup riders) I finished 3rd, and so I knew I was riding good, and after qualifying I was about a second off 3rd, so I knew it was achievable, and when the rain started falling I definitely thought that I could potentially get a medal, but people do step up their game at the world’s, but to win it, that exceeded my expectations a little bit.

ST Crossing the line?

CH; I went up for my run on the lift, and people were coming down and it was just starting to rain, and looking at the times and knowing was setting in for the afternoon. I could see the times, and thought they would hard to beat.

Coming down, I always do this weird thing, I look up at the timing board, and I could see it was green and I was 3 seconds up, and knew it had been a good run, Sat in the hot seat, I didn’t know if it would win – I didn’t think it was a winning run, but when I saw the others coming down, I think I laid down that perfect balance between pushing and not crashing, and stuck to my game plan, and thought it’s a medal run – but to win was incredible.