Cam Zink is one of the Godfathers of freeride and slopestyle mountain biking but yesterday he called time on his competitive slopestyle career during the Red Bull Joyride.

Zink, 30, elected to take one farewell run of the course he has been competing on for 13 years, despite harbouring an ankle injury. At the bottom he announced in an interview that he would be stepping down.

Zink said: “I hurt my ankle in practice. There’s no alternatives here so I just decided to put on one last run for the crowd. I’m the last of the original slopestyle class so it’s a bit of a new era. I just wanted to do one last c’est la vie. I’m done with slope. The level’s too high and I’m just getting hurt too much trying to keep up.”

Zink did confirm he would be riding at Red Bull Rampage later this year but whether he will continue big mountain riding in future was unclear. He also took the time at the end of his speech to pay tribute to Stevie Smith, Kelly McGarry, Dave Mirra and Erik Roner who all passed away this year, and to Paul Bas, who is still recovering from his Rampage crash last year.

Zink has been one of the defining figures of freeride mountain biking and his CV includes a win at Red Bull Rampage, two wins at the Crankworx Slopestyle, the world record for the longest backflip on a bike and his own feature film.