Mike Wilson is a Utah local who is just starting to register on the mtb radar. He spent much of the summer riding and fliming in B.C. I had met him the day before and the kid pretty much rules it on and off the bike. I was blown away by his run. He hit everything big and fast but he ended up scoring a paltry 56.2. Later that evening I wondered if I had overestimated his performance but when I watched Jeremy Levin’s footage it became clear that his was one of the strongest runs of the day. How he ended up with one of the lowest scores of the competition is a complete mystery. On his second run he boosted a huge line on the billy goat ridge favoured by Mike Kinrade, taking it more aggressively than any rider this year or last. He stuck the landing but was unable to control his speed and ended up crashing hard. Bikeless, he pulled a front flip for the crowd off the big stepdown. Apparently his bell had been rung because he had no memory of this later on.

Gee’s line was one of the gnarliest of the competition. It was a blind transfer that dropped about 15 feet onto a tiny, steep ledge which pointed the riders off an unrideable cliff . Wade ripped into the line bang-on but couldn’t rein in the speed and his fall was broken by a couple of folks when it looked like he was going over the edge. He finished his run flawlessly and it seemed clear to me that this performance would put him into the finals. The judges awarded him only 67.2. Instead of riding conservatively and ensuring a seat in the finals Wade stepped up again for the second round. Unfortunately he was unable to put together a clean run, scoring only 63.6. If points were given out for bravado and character Wade would have sewn up the competition right there. Watch out folks – Simmons is back.

In training Gracia was watching the young Camerons – Zink and McCaul – attempting backflips and he decided he wanted to try one himself. On his fourth attempt he pretty much nailed one and the word was out that he was going to try to lay one down on his second qualifying run. After putting together a wickedly fast run Cedric went into the final step-down with good speed and then launched a French somersault. He landed the flip in some soft stuff and came to a dead stop, clipping out with his left foot and leaning into the sand with his knee. Despite this miscue the judges rewarded Cedric’s efforts with 81.4 points. Clearly his run was worthy of the finals but the score seemed inconsistent with previous results.

Kinrade got in by stomping his billy goat line from last year despite having recently recovered from a broken collarbone. Spangler was a sure thing until he clipped a wheel on an original launch from Canadian Bacon onto Super T’s landing strip from last year and was sent tumbling. Cameron McCaul flew down the double drop line but was unable to control his speed and he had lost contact with his pedals by the time his bike was going off the final step-down - just before the hip where he had planned a backflip. His was one of the scariest crashes of the weekend but his rubber body escaped major damage. Greg Minaar and Glyn O'Brien made it to the big show by flowing everything and linking moves with speed. They didn't take too many chances but they made very few mistakes.

The judging
Let me say this first of all; I would not want to be one of the judges. The competition is incredibly tight and the whole process is very loose and subjective making this a very difficult process. It did seem to me at least a couple of riders who should have been in the finals weren’t there – namely Wade Simmons and Mike Wilson. Others have argued that Kyle Straight should have been there and he narrowly missed moving on. It seems that in round one falls were being all put into one category. If you exploded on impact like Bender it seems that you were penalized just as much as if you were to stumble while moving from one move to the other which was the case with Andrew Shandro. Let’s not turn this into trials where the object becomes to make it down the hill without putting a foot down.