World Champs practice kicked off today here in Mont-Sainte-Anne. The track is blown out and dusty already, large parts of the track remain the same so the riders are getting straight into the swing of things.

We are in French Canada so French riders have the option of doing interviews for Dirt TV in French if they really want to! Damien says: “For the moment it seems not bad, there’s a lot of height loss and it seems very dry and fast rolling, I think it’s going to ride very fast!”

Gee Atherton has beaten Greg Minnaar by just 0.37seconds at the Windham World Cup finals to claim the overall title. Fastest qualifier Steve Peat was on fire and smoking Gee’s time but went down hard in the drop near the bottom…

But what a race for Gee Man, the amount of pressure that must have been on his shoulders all week, he kept his cool and delivered a killer of a final run to take the win and his first series overall with 1229 points to Greg Minnaar’s 1185.

5 Brits in the top ten overall.

Great little video of World Cup rookie Jack Reading talking about his Cranky experience where he placed 7th in the Garbanzo Downhill and 13th at the Canadian DH

Brought to you by the Dirt Norco Team, this pilot episode introduces John Lawlor and his “Ice Box”. An in depth tour of his traveling home, covering all of the essential luxuries a world cup videographer could need.

It’s what we’ve been waiting for and today the Monster Energy Slopestyle went down. With blazing hot temperatures and dry conditions some of the top 16 riders in the world hurled themselves down the course with not much regard to bodies or safety. The day started at checking out the skills and finesse of the trials bikers over near the local creekbed. From there it was off to the Cheese rolling championships! Yes we saw people hurtling down the hillside all to grab that wheel of cheese. A now annual competition this British favorite shows who is willing to chase the “cheese”.

After we filled ourselves with the cheese antics we checked out the village scene and got into position for the big show. After seeing Casey Groves tailwhip the Monster stepdown, then soon to be winner Cam Zink 360 it this course was open for the slaughter. Highlights were seeing near perfect runs by Brendan Semenuk and Darren Berrecloth, both getting injured on the last hit the Kokanee showtime booter the rest of the field were waiting to take control. Cam Zink, Mike Montgomery and Casey Groves had top notch runs but it was Cam Zink’s 2nd qualifying run which sealed the deal with technical trickery and huge airs.

With Whistler’s biggest crowds since the Winter Olympics the nightlife was out of control. The Monster Energy afterparty at the Longhorn was a full house with Mat the Alien’s video DJ set and drinks flowing freely.

See you tomorrow for the final day  which is actually one of the best events the Canadian DH Open. Hope someone has Ibuprofens.

A bit of satelite delay and happy hour at The Longhorn Bar have held up our DirtTV Crankworx videos but the Parkin Bros are on a roll now so sit back and enjoy the Garbanzo DH from the weekend.

1. Chris Kovarik – 13:22.99
2. Justin Leov – 13:29.85
3. Samuel Blenkinsop – 13:39.35

Full results here.

You may have seen some of Sean Anderson’s edits from the Aussie Nationals, the lad’s got skills. Here’s his first foray into the world of full-length filmmaking and it looks like it’s going to be a banger.

Here’s what he says:

A film by Sean Anderson. Staring Chris Kovarik, Claire Buchar, Troy Brosnan, Josh Button, Mitch Delfs, Will Rischbieth, David Mcmillan, Holly Baarspul, Connor Fearon.

My First Full Length film. Covering the complete 2009/2010 Australian National Series in Downhill.

Episode 7 starts back at the Athertons’ home in Wales. The family have their own trails behind the house which they train on whenever they’re back home, and Dan and Gee hit the jumps.

Testing out a new line, suddenly, Dan disappears behind a jump for a lot longer than seems normal, and Gee and Clay rush to investigate, to find Dan on the ground. It’s a neck injury, and it doesn’t look good. In fact, it turns out Dan’s lucky to be alive. It’s at least three months off the bike for Dan, which has him thinking about the bigger picture. This episode is dedicated to the fallen riders who may not have been so lucky.