This year Smith finally defeated his nemesis, crossing the finish line with a time of 12:33.27, an impressive feat considering the length of the course is 12km and drops 3,400 vertical feet. Second fastest man was Columbian Marcelo Gutierrez Villega +5.48 and in third, Australian Chris Kovarik +15.40.

  Canadian women swept the podium today with Casey Brown in first at 14:28.74, Miranda Miller in second +3.23 and Whistler’s Claire Buchar (CAD) +3.26.

  “This is the first time I have had a clean run in competition on Garbanzo and I took the win,” says Smith. “It is a long race so you don’t absolutely ‘kill’ anything. I just kept a good pace all the way; I wasn’t really slow and I wasn’t really fast.”

  This kind of race really tests the World Cup racers since they train to reach the maximum speed they can sustain for the duration of 3-4 minutes. The Garbanzo track has them descending three times as long as that. The most successful riders have to find the fastest pace they can sustain for a long period of time and just hang on. At the end of the day, the conditions couldn’t have been more ideal for the race. The track was rolling really quick and the clock showed it with athletes coming in with the fastest times ever recorded in Garbanzo DH competition.







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