Michal Prokop and Emmeline Ragot are your 2010 Crankworx Giant Slalom winners. Inside you'll find photos and a decidedly rushed, but hopefully accurate description of the proceedings.
---
Words and Photos by David Peacock
The Giant Slalom seemed to lack the entrance of most top pros, but the racing still proved to be very entertaining. The course, while dry, held up well as it has been ridden by everyone in the bike park for the past few months. The GS course is often the first Crankworx track to be completed, and as such it tends to be appropriately worn in by the time the real racing starts. This year, the course was less of a slalom and more of a two man "mountain cross". While there were two lines for much of the course, it was only at the bottom that riders were required to stay in the assigned lanes. This made for great bar-to-bar racing, but it decreased the true head-to-head slalom feel that we experienced on Monday.
Emmeline Ragot during her solo practice run before semi finals.
Ropelato is behind Prokop by a fair margin here, but made up an impressive amount of time over the final two jumps.
Pro women warmed up with Fionn Griffiths going out early, Ragot receiving a bye to the semis, and Melissa Buhl looking fast. Eventually the racers were culled from the pack until it was just Buhl and Ragot remaining. The best of two runs format applied throughout the event, and Emmeline was able to win both runs, thanks in part to a crash from Buhl on the first turn of run one. Ragot has been looking strong all week and will take this momentum into Worlds at MSA.
Melissa Buhl absorbing as much of the penultimate jump as possible.
Danny Hart leads teammate Jared Rando during a battle of the Giants.
Ropelato before he was ousted by Prokop.
Notable competitors for the pro men were last night's pump track champ Mitch Ropelato, Giant riders Jared Rando and Danny Hart, and the eventual winner Michal Prokop. After losing to Mick Hannah in the dual slalom, Prokop was looking to re-cement himself as one of the premier racers in short track events. Beating Danny Hart in the finals proved to be fairly simple work for the Czech rider, as Hart fell behind in both runs and opted for a style over speed approach (which was greeted by great cheers from the crowd). The kid can whip! Full results will be available at this interweb locale shortly.
Prokop doing work!
Not a very good photo, but check out that whip!!
Danny Hart is among the charge of youth that are storming the race scene.
Prokop and Ragot are now undoubtedly heading into the Whistler village for a night of drunken celebrations thanks to the strictly enforced "10 percent rule" that applies at Kokanee Crankworx. Ha.
Congrats to Michal for taking the victory today.
Giant slalom is in the history books. See you next year for another weird, albeit entertaining non-slalom.
