Skip to content
Join our Newsletter

Semenuk takes Red Bull Joyride

Steve Smith defends Canadian Open DH title to close Crankworx Whistler
sports_results1
WHIP IT GOOD Brandon Semenuk crashed on his first run but nailed his second run to win the 2013 Red Bull Joyride mountain bike slopestyle. The crowd has been estimated at 25,000. Photo by Andrew Mitchell

Whistler's own Brandon Semenuk proved once again why he's one of the best freeride mountain bikers in the world on Saturday night with 25,000 fans crowding the slopestyle course for Red Bull Joyride.

After casing the very last jump on his first of two runs — something Semenuk did in 2011 before he won here the first time, and in 2010 when he placed second — he laid down the strongest second run of the night.

The hardest part for Semenuk after crashing on a backflip-tailwhip "flipwhip" combo on the last jump was waiting for his second chance.

"I wanted to get right back up there," he said. "It kind of sucked that we had a half time, because I was ready to go up and do it. My blood was going, I was ready to do it and I wasn't afraid anymore (after getting a crash out of the way)."

Despite the crash, Semenuk still placed seventh in his first run. His second run featured back-to-back double tailwhip variations spinning in both directions, a backflip off the cabin jump and another flipwhip on the bottom air. Other riders arguably had runs with tricks that had a higher degree of difficulty, but no other rider threw a trick off of every single feature, had as complete of a run, or made it to the bottom without crashing.

After Semenuk scored a 96.4 on his second run, that left six riders in the field to challenge for the title. All did their best but one-by-one they made mistakes in runs that had the potential to one-up Semenuk.

Swedish rider Martin Soderstrom, who had the lead after the first run and has never finished higher than second at Crankworx Whistler, landed a triple tailwhip on his second attempt but then had a huge crash on the last air, injuring his leg.

Although riders usually aren't all that aware of the crowd, Semenuk said he could hear the crowd's support all the way down the run. When asked if he felt any pressure, he nodded. "All my friends and family are here, I didn't want to disappoint."

Semenuk, for his part, didn't celebrate his win — worth $25,000 — until Soderstrom was up and heading to an ambulance.

Soderstrom finished second in the event with an 89.8, while British rider Sam Pilgrim, a rider who has crashed or broken his bike every single year he's competed at Crankworx, finished third with an 87.0.

"It's pretty cool," he said of the fact that he pulled into the lead on the Freeride Mountain Bike (FMB) world tour with his third place finish. "I would be better if (injured Ontario rider Brett) Rheeder was in the comps because it would be real.

"It's taken five years. I've never done that good here. When I was riding I was mostly just looking to make it to the bottom, and that turned into third place."

Anton Thelander of Sweden, the youngest competitor, placed fourth and won the new "Young Gun" award.

Semenuk, who placed second at X Games and first at Crankworx Les 2 Alpes, opted against competing on the tour this year. When asked if he regrets not being on the tour given his results, Semenuk said no. His goal this year was to focus on a few key events and spend the rest of the time filming — something he says is going well.

"I've been working on season two of Life Behind Bars with new episodes every second week, and since March I've been working on a feature film with Freeride Entertainment that's about halfway done. I spent most of my summer doing that and I'm going to get back to that once this is wrapped up," he said.

"We wanted to show the most progressive riding, with the best features, jumps and trails, and make it happen. It's a core film, there's not a lot of talking, just some good riding on some really awesome courses."

Only three riders have won two slopestyle events in Whistler, going back to the first one in 2002 — Paul Basagoitia, Cam Zink and now Brandon Semenuk.

Steve Smith shakes off crash to win Canadian Open DH

Nanaimo's Steve Smith is one of the top downhill mountain bikers in the world right now, but even he was surprised to see the number "1" beside his name at the finish line of the Canadian Open DH on Sunday.

"There's a really awkward corner in the first woods (section), and I like to take a pedal out of it but my foot slipped on the pedal and I went into a tree and crashed," he said.

Rather than give up he said he kept running, flipped his bike around and jumped back on. Then he rode faster than was safe to the finish.

"I went way too fast and risked my life," is how he explained it to the announcers.

The win was Smith's third in three years on the tough and technical course. A west coaster, he says he's comfortable with that style of riding.

"A lot of people were saying how gnarly the course is especially with the rain, but I just feel comfortable here. It's also my hometown and the pressure is on to go fast. I'm stoked to take another win."

Smith's time was an impossible 2:47.81 on a course that measured 1,100 vertical feet. Australia's Mick Hannah was second by just 0.09 seconds, while Sam Blenkinsop, another Australian, was 2.2 seconds back of Hannah to place third.

Next up for Smith is the UCI World Championship in South Africa, followed by the World Cup finals. He's 120 points out of the lead for the overall downhill title this year after winning the World Cup in Quebec, and placing second, third and fourth in the three races prior to that.

Smith is the most successful Canadian downhiller ever, something he can't explain given that the Whistler Mountain Bike Park was the first of its kind in the world, and the quality of trails in the province. He'd like to see Canada and B.C. do more to develop athletes.

"I was lucky to get an early start on the World Cup circuit as a junior, and before that I was building up riding on the BC Cup circuit... and I think the race circuit was better then," he said. "Kids can ride all this good terrain but racing is different than riding. If they don't start to race at a young age and get the right support..."

Smith said he started racing BMX when he was seven years old and essentially trained to race at the World Cup level from an early age.

"We need to be running better races and putting more effort into making the best racers."

Whistler's Jack Iles, one up-and-coming rider who has his sights set on the World Cup, was racing in the combined junior expert/pro category, and had an unlucky day. He was riding strong in his first run, but was waved down when a rider crashed in front of him and a hold was placed on the course. His second run didn't go as well and he crashed on one section, placing 43rd out of 105 finishers.

"I'm still pretty happy, I was riding well and I had a really good race except for that (crash)," he said. "I love this course, this is my favourite course and my favourite race is probably this one. Heckler's rock is incredible, there's nothing like it anywhere."

Heckler's rock is a spot under the Fitzsimmons Chair where fans congregate in the hundreds, take their shirts off, heckle riders on the course and on the chair, and make a lot of noise. A few riders that had already blown their runs stopped at the rock to breakdance with the fans or high-five partiers, while one fan even brought a chainsaw (chain off for safety) and revved it while Steve Smith and other riders passed by. For Smith, who has a sticker of a chainsaw on his helmet, it's one of the highlights.

"I couldn't really hear it on my bike to be honest, but going up the chairlift people were going nuts for me... chanting 'Steve.'"

Bernard Kerr of the U.K. placed eighth on the day, and had nothing but praise for the course and the fans.

"The course is on par with the best on the World Cup. Heckler's Rock is the best thing on the circuit, we all love it... it's so fun."

The top three women were Emmeline Ragot of France in 3:13.01, followed by Whistler's Claire Buchar 8.77 seconds later and Floriane Pugin of France 7.23 seconds back of Buchar.

Local riders appeared on the podium in several of the age categories. For more, visit www.crankworx.com.

Steve Smith repeats Air Downhill win

Nanaimo's Steve Smith chose not to defend his Garbanzo DH title on Tuesday, Aug. 14 in order to concentrate on the Fox Air Downhill on A-Line on Wednesday, where he would be defending his title.

And defend it he did, clearing the course in a time of 4:12.08, 1.77 seconds ahead of Australia's Mick Hannah, while Nick Beer of Switzerland finished 3.3 seconds back of Smith. Brian Lopes, who won the race five years in a row before last year, was fourth.

Whistler's top rider was Chris Kovarik in ninth place, with Ian Morrison finishing 12th and Nick Geddes 14th out of 116 riders.

American Jill Kintner won the women's race in 4:34.48, followed by French riders Emmile Ragot and Floriane Pugin. Kintner had over 4.5 seconds on Ragot and over 10 seconds on Pugin.

"I've come second in a lot of races so I'm stoked to get the win here," said Kintner.

"This is the freshest I've felt coming into this event. Thanks to the rain it was really rough and loose on the course, you can feel the bike sliding. I just didn't want to get second again."

Whistler's Claire Buchar was fourth overall. Other Canadians in the top 10 were Casey Brown in fifth, Micayla Gatto in seventh and Holly Feniak in ninth.

In the junior 16 to 18 category, Whistler's Alexander Geddes was first overall in a near-pro time 4:21.74, followed by Squamish's Lee Jackson half a second later. Jack Iles, another Whistler rider was third, 4.8 seconds back of Geddes, while Isaac Maragoni was fourth out of 61 starters.

In the 13 to 15 category, Australians Remy Morton and Jackson Frew were first and third, while Adison MacDonald of Whistler split the difference to pick up the silver medal. Less than 0.86 seconds separated the top three.

Whistler's Jack Iles was fifth in the race, Bracken Camilleri was seventh, Alex Auger eighth and Jackson Bathgate 10th out of 36 riders.

In Master Men, local rider Andrew Gunn was fastest in 4:30.67, followed by Austin Ling and Squamish's Chad Hendren. In Senior Amateur 19 to 29, Pierre Thevenard of France was first in 4:26.15, followed by British rider Sea Faulds and Australian Daniel Heads.

Complete results online at www.crankworx.com.

Kintner four-peats at Ultimate Pump Track Challenge

Given the thousands of spectators packing Whistler Olympic Plaza for the Ultimate Pump Track Challenge, it's hard to believe this event has only been part of Crankworx for four years.

It's even harder to believe that Washington State resident and Whistler regular Jill Kintner has won each of those years. She's been a dominating presence in the track, but this year looked like she'd have her hands full with Australian rider Caroline Buchanan, a BMX world champion and four-cross star. The two qualified first and second, setting up the final showdown on the course, which included a ramp start, two tight berms and burly rhythm sections that put the top pump trackers in the world to the test.

In the final, Kintner got the jump on Buchanan from the start. Buchanan tried to catch up, but made a rare error to put herself a full second behind on the second run. The gap was too big to overcome, and Kintner — despite a mistake in the start of her second run — took her fourth consecutive pump track title at Crankworx by a wide margin.

She told announcers that three wins was special, and the fourth entry was more about having fun than anything. She also pointed out that the level of riding was coming up with four world champions in different disciplines on the podium.

"I was really looking forward to have some top quality competitors here, especially for the girl class — it's stronger than it's ever been," she said. For Kintner, who rides every kind of bike discipline but got her start in BMX — and returned to the discipline to win a bronze medal when the sport debuted at the 2008 Olympic Games — it's been great to see the progression of women in the sport.

"This is kind in our blood," she said. "Caroline and I grew up doing this stuff, as did Anneka (Beerten) and Katy (Curd).

"The course was built really well... it's like a total lactic acid burn with back-to-back heats. It's really quite physical, you have to use your entire body and get low, and use your legs to push yourself back up — you can barely do two laps of this thing without being flooded out. And you have to stay alert, and there are a lot of jitters at the start listening for the airhorn, and making sure your pedal is in the right place for the old-school BMX starts. But it's so much fun."

Kintner's strategy was to go hard in the first run and build a gap that would allow her to relax a little on the second run — and maybe set a pace that would force her competitors to make mistakes. "The more mistakes that others make the more you can gain on them and then in the finals you might get a good margin that protects you on the second run," she said.

Other than the start and coming out of the last berm, she said it was hard to see how the other competitors were doing. "They're not really in your head, you're so focused on what's ahead that you have no idea or way to gauge where they are. You just hope you come through the corner where the course merges that they're not in your lane."

In the bronze medal match, British rider Katy Curd defeated North Vancouver's Micayla Gatto.

In the men's competition, American Mitch Ropelato was also going for the four-peat — and looked to be unstoppable. He was finishing half a second to a second ahead of the other rider in all of his heats.

But mistakes happen. In his semi-final against Sweden's Martin Soderstrom, Ropelato got out to a late start. He put all of his effort into catching up, got too close to the edge of one section and slid off. The most a gap could be for a second round was a full second, and while he was faster than Soderstrom in the second round he could only make up about half a second.

Meanwhile, a relativ ely unknown French rider, Adrien Loron was making his way up through the other side of the bracket and appeared to be getting faster with every run. He defeated Kyle Sangers in the first round; Danny Hart in round two and Christian Wright in round three to move up to the semi-finals and a battle against Joost Wichman. The first heat was close, just five hundredths of a second in Loron's favour, but Loron got off to a late start in that round and burned through the second run. Wichman made a mistake, but it wouldn't have mattered.

That set up a final between Soderstrom and Loron. Soderstrom made a mistake right out of the start of the first run, although he still kept things close. But Loron pulled away gradually, making up fractions of a second on Soderstrom on every feature of the second run and came out of the second berm would a solid gap.

Loron said he had been training for the competition since his win at Crankworx Les 2 Alpes.

"There were a lot of big names tonight, but I was confident because I trained a lot for this event — but I'm really happy to win because big names are big names.

"I love to ride pump track and this year the pump track was the craziest I've ever seen, and it was so cool to ride it."

Loron said it did feel he was getting faster over the course of the evening, but so was Soderstrom. However, Loron never lost confidence.

"I could see that Martin was nervous at the start but I was confident in the second run. But Martin is also really fast, so it was difficult. I think my last run was one of my best of the night, which is what I needed to beat him."

Montgomery takes Teva Best Trick

American Mike Montgomery gave the bike-riding public something to talk about for years during the Teva Best Trick contest on Thursday afternoon, adding another new trick to the annals of freeride mountain biking. The trick is called a "barhop to late tailwhip backflip" and is almost impossible to describe.

It had to be special to win. A list of landed tricks include a 360 double tailwhip, hugging floating front flips, a barspin tailwhip, a double tailwhip, a front flip barspin, a backflip double tailwhip, backflip no hander, a 360 backflip combo called a cash roll, but Montgomery's trick topped them all. Basically it starts out as a backflip with the rider putting his feet over the bars — the barhop portion — pulling them back over the bars and then launching a tailwhip while still spinning upside down.

"You're in front of the bike, then you're in back of the bike, then you're off the bike — it's pretty trippy," said Montgomery. "That's why I put grip tape on my (rear triangle), so I could catch it when it comes around."

Montgomery said he only learned the trick last week while riding in the foam pit, and came to Whistler 100 per cent committed to landing it.

"From being completely not able to ride last year with an injury to being able to put that down," he said, shaking his head. "Everybody's like 'world's first' or whatever, but it became a personal thing. I'd be really psyched to put it down even if I didn't win.

"I came into (the contest) fully committed. On the ride here I said it's going down, whether it's rainy, snowy, windy or foggy, I was going to do it."

Last year Montgomery shattered his thumb while riding, and then got a staph infection in the injury that kept him grounded for five months. He also fractured two disks in his back at the first contest of this season, but has been riding anyway.

"I still made it work," he said. "I'm not 100 per cent, but I told myself if I was coming here and it was still iffy then I'd still give 100 per cent."

Montgomery won $4,000.

Finishing second was Yannick Ganieri of France for his backflip double tailwhip, followed by newcomer Nicholi Rogatkin from the U.S., who is just 17 years old. He did a long, slow front flip leaned over his handlebars for maximum style points.

Aussies sweep men's Giant Dual Slalom, Kintner wins again

Racers in the Gia nt Dual Slalom on Friday night, Aug. 16, had a little bit of rain and slippery conditions to contend with on a fast course where even a small mistake could leave you out of contention.

The men's podium was all Australian, with Graeme Mudd beating Connor Fearon in two runs, and Ryan Hunt besting French Rider Fab Cousinie for third place.

For the women, Jill Kintner was her usually dominant self and edged out Australian BMX champion Caroline Buchanan in the last heat to take the win. Anneke Beerten placed third with a win over U.K. rider Katy Hurd.

The age categories competed during the wettest part of the day. In Junior Amateur it was an all Whistler final, with Jack Iles getting the best of Alexander Geddes in two runs.

Complete results are posted online at www.crankworx.com.

European star wins Trialsworx

The annual Trialsworx trials competition got some unexpected star power this year with the surprise appearance of four-time trials world champion Kenny Beleay, a Red Bull trials athlete from Belgium.

He was close to perfect in Whistler, registering just six dabs on five challenging stages.

In second was Mill Bay's John Webster with 22 dabs. Usually he's in the single digits, but he's taken some time off riding and came into Trialsworx a little rusty.

"To tell you the truth I haven't been riding that much since last season," said Webster, who competed on the World Cup circuit last year.

"I think I could get it back if I trained but I'm kind of taking the season off," he added, although he hasn't decided whether he'll return to the World Cup tour next season.

"It's just a whole other level over there (in Europe). My goal was to compete on the World Cup and compete in the World Championships, and I did that. I don't know if it's something I need to do again. It takes a huge amount of work."

Jeff Anderson was third with 27 dabs.

King and Queen of Crankworx crowned

Following the Canadian Open DH on Sunday, Crankworx presented special awards to the top male and female rider over the course of the week.

The king was Steve Smith, who defended his titles in the Air Downhill and Canadian Open DH. The queen was Jill Kintner for winning the Garbanzo DH, defending her title at the Ultimate Pump Track Challenge and then winning the Giant Dual Slalom.

As well, organizers announced the dates for Crankworx Whistler 2014 — Aug. 8 to Aug. 17.