Episode 7 - Pre Season World Cup chat with Luke & Francis Williamson

Gromcast is back! After what was a much extended hiatus thanks to life, work and a million other reasons I have finally got another episode in the bag.

This time I chat to previous guest and 2022 British Elite Men's Overall Downhill series winner Luke Williamson. We are joined by the lesser known part of the Williamson racing operation, Francis Williamson. Francis is Luke's dad and a huge integral part of the support in his racing. He is no stranger to racing on two wheels and no slouch on the bike with a strong background in motorcycle racing. He will often be found at World Cups with Luke as part of the mechanical support with the 555 Gravity team, providing a lot of the parts of everything Luke needs so he can focus on his racing. We have a brief recap on Luke's '22 season, which by his own account was bit of a rollercoaster with a belter of a run at Fort William that saw him finish in 23rd after a top 20 qualifier, followed some injury issues and a concussion, and then wrapped up the year by taking the British overall. 2023 sees a whole raft of changes to the Downhill World Cup and we discuss how they foresee those changes affecting Luke, the sport as a whole and where it all is heading. Francis has some really interesting insight into this, and there is some really good stuff on the direction of the sport and what the future may look like.

The time off from recording an episode clearly didn't do me many favours, as since recording this episode it has been a technical nightmare full of broken laptop, lost recordings, missing files and all sorts of nonsense. As a result the final chunk of this episode has disappeared into the digital netherworld never to be seen again. Oh well, you live and you learn. Huge thanks to Graeme Bean for bringing the laptop back to life.

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