With the first leg of the Crankworx world tour all wrapped up, focus is now shifting to the newly announced B.C. leg in September.
Crankworx B.C. will take place in multiple locations in the province including Silverstar, Kicking Horse, Golden and Sun Peaks from Sept. 6 to 19.
“It’s something we’ve been working on for a long time and we were able to do the Clif Summer Series last year and this is an opportunity to bring the top competitors for the King and Queen of Crankworx to B.C.,” said Darren Kinnaird, managing director of Crankworx.
“We are really looking forward to being able to do something this late summer, early fall … and we’re hoping that we will be able to have fans and all the other normal elements of Crankworx as we tour around the province. Just really excited to bring something to B.C. this summer.”
According to Kinnaird, this new leg of the tour is designed to be a made-for-TV event, but has the option of including fans, if the COVID-19 restrictions at the time support that—something he said wasn’t really a possibility if the event was in Whistler.
“I think [in this case], one of Whistler’s greatest strengths … might be a potential challenge,” he said.
“We know if we did something in Whistler it would bring a massive crowd and I don’t think the community is in a position where it is 100-per-cent comfortable with doing that. You know the venues for Crankworx Whistler are right at the base of the Whistler Mountain Bike Park, so that makes it really hard to do things in a made-for-TV, no spectator arena, should we have to go to that.
“But the other resorts that we are looking at doing this, where we were out at last summer, we have the ability to do things a little bit more hidden away or tucked away and control spectator access a little bit easier.”
While the event will be set up similarly to a regular Crankworx event, some of the eligibility criteria was changed to keep the event safe for everyone attending.
In particular, Crankworx B.C. will only be eligible to the top 16 male and top 16 female riders who are in contention for the King and Queen of Crankworx awards. The top 14 slopestyle riders will also be invited based on the rankings as of six weeks before the start of the event.
“One of the key things and hallmark signatures of Crankworx is you can be in the same race on the same day as some of your favourite racers,” said Kinnaird. “And when public regulations allow in the future, that’s something we definitely want to get back to, but I don’t think anyone is in a position to even consider that being possible at this point.”
Unfortunately for some of the Junior riders, like Pemberton’s Tegan Cruz—who just won the U17 Pump Track, Dual Slalom and Downhill events in Innsbruck—that means they won’t be able to compete at home this year.
But that doesn’t change Cruz’s excitement for the event.
“It looks like a really cool program and a lot of the elite racers that I know back home are excited to be competing in that. And just seeing more events and races happening in British Colombia is good to see for sure and [I’m] happy to hopefully be able to race those when I’m old enough,” said Cruz.
“It would be my second week back after three months in Europe so [I’ll] probably just be spending lots of time at home on the farm with the family and everything, but definitely considering going to check things out and cheering on some of my friends.”
While fans should be able to see some of the top local female riders competing in Crankworx B.C., many of the top males like Whistler’s Finn Iles and Cruz’s older brother Lucas will still be in Europe for the World Cup tour.
“That’s the one thing, [COVID-19] has really impacted schedules this year and things got juggled around and people are a little cautious,” said Kinnaird. “There’s like three or four events all within a couple weeks of each other in September, so this is going to be Crankworx-specific athletes that are really focused on competing in the Crankworx events.”
The full list of riders will be announced closer to the event’s start date.
The Whistler stop of the Crankworx world tour is set to return as normal in August, 2022.
