This weekend marked the biggest race of the EWS season, the stop at Whistler’s Crankworx. Riders faced seven brutal stages that featured extremely technical and physical racing. Kona had a full squad onsite racing for both the men and the women. Miranda Miller continued her strong season with a 9th place finish. Fellow Squamish rider, Rhys Verner continued to climb the ranks and finished with an impressive 17th place, including a 9th place finish in the final stage.
Kona local and Bellingham ripper, Hannah Bergemann, competed in only her second-ever EWS and was holding close to a top-ten result until she succumbed to an unfixable flat on the final stage. In the U21 category, BC’s Lucy Shick continued her dominating ways and took the top spot on the podium!
After battling rainy, boggy conditions, we’re thrilled that everyone had a safe day on what is sure to be a course to remember.
“For the first time, Whistler had the top of the world stage on Saturday evening. It was a good opportunity to smash the stage since it was all we had to do that day. I went pretty hard on the stage and was rewarded with 15th place and a good time. On day two, everything changed because we now had to deal with rain and slippery conditions. This made stage two gnarly and I had a few crashes, tweaking my ankle slightly. Luckily, there was the tech zone after stage three where Anthony could tape my ankle. I finished the rest of the day solid with another 15th place and a 9th place on the last stage. All in all, I had a great weekend with the team and everyone did great. I’m looking forward to the rest of Crankworks and North Star.”
-Rhys Verner
“This weekend was tough. Saturday was a long day waiting for it all to start and it felt good to be finally racing after what felt like such a big build-up. With the race being local it felt like I’ve just been hanging out at home waiting for it to arrive. Top of the World was a strong start, I rode technically very consistent and well but was a bit messy on the bits in between. The plan was to continue to attack technically on Sunday. Unfortunately, I never found the energy I needed and was flat all day. It perhaps was a mix of the cold temperature, the late-night effort of Stage 1 the evening before and maybe I missed some nutrition marks and faded too much to return from. It was a very hard race and I felt like I was just surviving. Getting a podium in the last round had already surpassed my goals for the season and although of course we always want to be on the podium, this was a good reminder to keep focusing on the process of each race and each stage. So stoked to see Rhys get a career-best and move into the top 30 overall.”
-Miranda Miller
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