Brian Lopes, again showing his speed along with versatility, wins the first ever Canadian Open Enduro with a time of less than 20 minutes. Fionn Griffiths takes home the gold in the pro women's division.
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Words and Photos by David Waugh
The Canadian Open Enduro took place on Saturday in the afternoon before slopestyle. The inaugural event covered a lot of ground all over the mountain, starting above the top of Garbanzo at the gondola station. Not just a downhill event, the race descended about 3800 feet, but also climbed about 500 feet. Lopes appeared powerful all around, on wet and muddy technical downhill as well as on the uphill; he finished with a time of 19:45, the only one to break 20 minutes.
Lopes was well ahead of his competition at this section of trail near the bottom of the course
Chris Johnston on his way to third place
The women's race was closer than the men's with the top three riders all finishing about 10 seconds apart. It appeared as if they were following each other for most of the race. Eventually Fionn Griffiths prevailed with a time of 24:23.
At this point Melissa Buhl was in the lead with Fionn Griffiths and Emmeline Ragot close behind
Griffiths with gold, Buhl with silver, and Ragot with Bronze
Brian Lopes on top once again, Matt Ryan second, and Chris Johnston third