Marcelo Gutierrez won his fourth consecutive Garbanzo downhill after snapping his chain 3/4 of the way down the course while Miranda Miller cleaned up in the women’s race.
The Colombian is now undefeated in the Garbanzo since 2011 and imitated Aaron Gwin and Neko Mulally‘s chainless runs of recent years to pump himself to a seven second victory over Sam Blenkinsop. Jack Moir was third with Loic Bruni and Harry Heath rounding out the top five.
Gutierrez apparently snapped his chain 3/4 of the way through his run, but this still meant he had around three minutes of racing to complete chainless. He said: “I just backsided every roller I saw up there and, well it happened, I’m glad it happened, I tried hard and I’m pretty stoked it happened like that up there today.”
Miranda Miller took her experience from Sunday’s EWS to slot into first place in the women’s race. Tracey Hannah was second with Whistler locals Claire Buchar and Casey Brown third and fourth. Manon Carpenter was fifth.
The Garbanzo DH is one of the longest downhill races with full runs taking more than 12 minutes. Riders take the Garbanzo lift 3,400 ft up then race down the seven kilometre course that covers Original Sin, Blue Velvet, In Deep, Duffman, Golden Triangle, World Cup Single Track, Ho Chi Min, Longhorn and Monkey Hands.
Full results are here:
Check our video investigating Gwin’s chainless win:
