now I have some time to myself I'll say more about the trip. I went with stan in his van, the traffic was pretty bad on the trip to dover and we missed our ferry, we got on a later one though which was cool. We ended up in belgium pretty late, we didnt have a map though, only some vague directions to our hotel, at 3am we found it! that was a pretty stressful drive!! The next day we had to get up early and go sign on, this also gave us a chance to look at the sections. The layout was cool, 6 sections all very close together on the beach with a grandstand, music playing and people already sitting down ready to watch...there was a cool warmup area too made from a demo rig and some pallets/cable reels, that attracted a bit of an audience too (especially when the top guys were on there!) The sections were all rocks placed in the sand except for one section made from concrete tubes, I was a tad dissapointed in no wooden section, but I cant complain really. Qualifying was on saturday with over 30 riders in 26", the top 10 get moved into the semi finals, my goal for the weekend was to get in that top 10, I wasnt sure if it was going to be possible, especially as its my first ever uci world cup. The sections were very techy, there were a few big moves, but it was mostly balance that was needed, I cleaned a few sections, but it was very easy to get a five, too many dabs, time, tape boundaries, pedal dabs, they soon racked up the points. It was awesome with the music and the crowd though, they really supported the riders and cheered when they got out of a section. I rode ok, I didnt think I had done well enough, but fortunatly I had just about qualified!! I was REALLY happy! I saw the sections for the semi that evening...they were HAAAARD! such a difference between qualifying! You needed power as well as balance and endurence, I think I remember ben slinger saying it was the hardest world cup semis he had seen. I seemed to ride a tad better, I guess that was the time to do so too. I got out of a few sections, but I also 5ed a few too. I cleaned the concrete section both times which was cool and I beat Vinceant Hermance in a section too!!! I got 1 dab, he got 3! Thats my highlight of the comp! I was also happy to beat Joe Brewer too and I was 1 dab off Wes Beleay (though he did have the worst ride of his life!) I ended up 11th, I am VERY happy with that, the top 8 got moved to the final....my future goal is to get into a final, although, the finals were sooooooooooooooo hard its untrue! Kenny is a beast! I cant believe some of the stuff he can do, its amazing! I hope Andrei's hand gets better soon, it was a pretty harsh crash! PHILL AND JOE, get your pics up!