“Going into this year’s event there was a little more pressure after winning last year’s Air DH,” said Smith. “I skipped the Garbo DH this year to focus on this event and I’m stoked to take the win.”
Mick Hannah (AUS) took second place with a time of 4:13.85; Nick Beer (SUI) took third place with a time of 4:15.21. The field was packed with 129 registered pro men riders, the most registered bikers in the Fox Air DH’s ten year history.
In the pro women category, Jill Kintner (USA) was able to hold off Emmiline Ragot (FRA) to take top spot with a time of 4:34.48, a full four seconds and 55 one-hundredths of a second ahead of Ragot’s second place time of 4:39.03; and Floraine Pugin (FRA) took home third spot with a time of 4:44.52.
“I’ve come second in a lot of races so I’m stoked to get the win here. This is the freshest I’ve felt coming into this event,” said Kintner. “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.”
Canadians swept the top three Junior Men’s category with top spot going to Alexander Geddes finishing with a time of 4:21.74; second place went to Lee Jackson with 4:21.24; and third spot went to Jack Iles with 4:26.54.
The Air DH course runs the entire length of A-Line, finishing at the base of the Whistler Mountain Bike Park with the legendary GLC Drop. A-Line is arguably the most celebrated DH course in mountain biking and is the standard to which course designers try to emulate.
Full results here.