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Verner, ALN sit third after Summer Series' second week

Squamish riders holding their own in Crankworx contests
Clint Trahan and Chris Pilling
Squamish’s Miranda Miller (right) took third in the Maxxis Kicking Horse Downhill to winner Casey Brown (centre) and runner-up Vaea Verbeeck (left) on Aug. 7.

At the completion of two of three stops on the Crankworx Summer Series, Squamish riders are once again holding down the bronze-medal positions overall.

After four days of racing at Golden's Kicking Horse Mountain Resort, Rhys Verner is third on the men's side while Andreane Lanthier Nadeau is third on the women's side. After the first week at SilverStar, Kasper Woolley occupied the third men's spot, but he's since slipped to 10th, and Miranda Miller was third among women, but she dropped a spot into fourth.

Lanthier Nadeau started her rise by winning the "Proper Enduro" on Aug. 4, besting second-place Miller by 0.03 seconds overall. On the men's side, Whistler's Finn Iles ran away with the win, but Squamish rounded out the podium with Woolley in second and Verner in third.

Lanthier Nadeau then took her second win in as many days, topping the Psychosis downhill ahead of Whistler's Georgia Astle and Revelstoke's Casey Brown. Verner, meanwhile, took third behind champion Henry Fitzgerald and Iles. The race, dropping more than 1,200 vertical metres across 7.3 kilometres of rocky terrain, was resurrected after a 12-year hiatus.

"[I experienced] mega overheat. Definitely some mega fatigue in the race run," Lanthier Nadeau said in a news release. "I just tried to keep it consistent so I wouldn't go too much in the red zone."

Lanthier Nadeau then took second in the Kicking Horse Dual Slalom on Aug. 6, falling in the final to overall leader Vaea Verbeeck, while Miller went down to Brown in the small final to take fourth. No Squamish riders came through on the men's side, though Pemberton's Lucas Cruz earned the win and Iles took third.

Lastly, to wrap up, Verner earned a second-place showing to Whistler's Jesse Melamed in the Maxxis Kicking Horse Downhill on Aug. 7, while Miller took third on the women's side behind champion Brown and runner-up Verbeeck.

Action wraps up at Sun Peaks next week.

 

 

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