The one-year-only, multi-stop, B.C. leg of the Crankworx World Tour wrapped up earlier this month at SilverStar Mountain Resort outside of Vernon.
Between Sept. 22 and Oct. 2, Crankworx B.C. made stops at SilverStar, Kicking Horse Mountain Resort, Golden and Sun Peaks Resort. And according to Crankworx’s managing director Darren Kinnaird, while the weather posed some challenges with the combination of rain and freezing overnight temperatures, he couldn’t be happier with the quality of the tracks the various resorts had for the riders.
“We dodged some bullets with the weather for sure,” said Kinnaird. “I’ve never had to scrape ice off of a slopestyle feature before, but the team all pulled together and worked really hard. A lot of tiger torches, but we were able to get the course ready each day for enough training time. The athletes were able to put on a great show and we saw some really good courses.
“That’s one of the things that stood out to all the athletes. The slalom courses at Sun Peaks, and SilverStar were really world-class racetracks and then the slopestyle up at SilverStar, the athletes all said it was maybe one of the best slopestyle courses that has ever been built and it really allowed them to showcase their skills and tricks.”
For some riders, like current Queen of Crankworx leader Vaea Verbeeck, the new multi-stop leg of the tour was a nice change of pace and got to show off a little bit more of her home province than the international riders are used to seeing.
“I love the concept of doing a little B.C. tour, and it was so nice to see the rest of the competitors from around the world get a taste of the rest of B.C. Most of them come at some point in their career and they’ll just go to Whistler because that’s the most iconic location,” she said. “But there is so much to B.C. and that’s what it’s known for, and so it’s nice to show them a bit more of the spots in the interior or just like the rolling mountains around the Okanagan. It’s really special to show.”
But despite the welcomed change of scenery and the world-class tracks the racers got to race on, this new format is a one-and-done as next year marks the return of Crankworx to its home in Whistler, which is something both Kinnaird and Verbeeck are stoked for.
“I think it’s safe to say everyone is super excited to return to Whistler, finally,” said Verbeeck. “Whistler is the first place I went to for Crankworx many years ago and it just carries a lot of memories over the years. And even as of the last time we were there I have very cool memories from there from winning the last Queen of Crankworx title. So I definitely have nothing against going back to Whistler, very exciting to kind of go back to our normal way of doing Crankworx.”
However, Crankworx B.C. did not mark the end of the World Tour this year. Kinnaird, Verbeeck and many of the other competing riders have already made their way to New Zealand for the final stop at Crankworx Rotorua.
With one last event on the schedule, there are many different story lines that Kinnaird believes fans of the sport should be keeping their eyes on. At the top of the list is Emil Johansson’s pursuit of the slopestyle triple crown after already winning in SilverStar and Innsbruck this year, as well as Verbeeck’s quest for back-to-back Queen of Crankworx titles.
“We saw some good battles for the King and Queen of Crankworx. Vaea Verbeeck was the last queen in 2019 and she currently has the lead, but Harriet Burbidge-Smith did quite well and picked up a few podiums and Kialani Hines picked up a number of podiums, too. So as we come into Rotorua, the competition for the Queen is quite heated, it can kind of go any way so we will see how things play out,” said Kinnaird.
“But the biggest thing, probably, is the chance for Emil to win the triple crown. That’s only ever been done once before. We’ve had a number of athletes get close and crumble under the pressure, but that is probably the thing to watch for is can Emil win again and take the triple crown?”
Verbeeck, who battled back from third place in the Queen of Crankworx standings after Innsbruck to take the top spot heading into Rotorua, is currently in the last few days of her two-week quarantine in New Zealand and is trying to stay busy and not get too bored so that when she is able to leave the hotel, she’ll be ready to go and compete for the back-to-back title.
While she is already motivated to get the win, having her good friend, and fellow Canadian, Bas Van Steenbergen sitting atop the King of Crankworx standings lights even more of a fire under her to finish what she started.
“It would be super cool to repeat for sure. But I think the thing that makes me most excited is to potentially be able to win it with Bas,” she said. “Mathematically, he [will] win it, so at this point the pressure is on me, because I really want us both to be crowned at the same time, that would be super special. I think that is mainly why I want to win it so bad right now is not for me, it’s for us, it would be really cool.”
Crankworx Rotorua kicks off on Tuesday, Nov. 2 and wraps up the following Sunday, Nov. 7 with the finals of each event being broadcast live on Red Bull TV. Highlights, as well as full schedule of events for Rotorua, are available at crankworx.com.
