Local Canadian Team downhill rider Miranda Miller showed absolute determination and resilience after a disappointing end to her first World Championship in Scotland this month. Despite a dramatic wipeout on the racecourse resulting in a broken collarbone, Miller said she's determined to heal quickly and get back on her bike.
"I'm anxious to be back training and rebuilding my strength," she said.
The experience was far from all bad, however. Miller said she came away with some exhilarating memories. Fans started to arrive two days before the races.
"The whole venue was unreal," she said. "I don't think I've ever been cheered on in practice and I was even asked to pose for a photo. Everyone there was so excited and pumped on the whole week that it was really something else - something that we need here in Canada."The course itself also generated more than a little excitement among the riders. Even though it was cold, windy and rainy the team wanted to ride and ride. There were swooping downhill sections, tight turns and berms, lots of lumpy rocky sections, three short rock faces, a couple of table tops, a tight, rooty section through the woods and jumps or short drops. Miller admitted it was hard work and that she had to limit her number of runs in order not to overtax herself.
Miller had taken a fairly leisurely seeding run and saying she believed she could knock at least 30 seconds off that time - had she achieved that goal she would have placed second. The weather conditions, however, had changed for the worse.
On the whole the early riders were cautious in the wind, but "I was feeling great; warm from spinning and unstoppable - a feeling only full spandex can give you," Miller said.
"I knew that my fitness level was sufficient to make the time I wanted for I had experimented in practice and I knew I still had a lot in the tank."
The team manager saw her fly by at the top of the course and said she was "just pinning it" when disaster struck."I went through one particularly rough section and jumped into a left hand berm and looked ahead at the corner and jump coming up. Before I knew it I was on the ground skidding to a stop before the jump. When I realized I couldn't get up, I was overcome with disappointment. When I tried to move, I knew I had broken my collarbone."
After that, another adventure began. Although a red flag had been announced neither of the next two riders were stopped. One narrowly missed awhile the other skidded into Miller.
Miller was removed, back-boarded for safety, and manually winched aboard a platform suspended from the gondola cable. "It was a weird ride. I was strapped down and the wind was blowing pretty hard and I was swinging about," she recalled. The First Aid Tent personnel were in a flurry, passing binoculars around and to Miller's parents.
"At least I made it back to the race course in time to catch the last of the Pro Men and ... I wouldn't have missed it for the world. There is always next year, right?" said Miller.
Miller will have surgery on her clavicle this week and is expecting to be back riding flat stretches in a couple of months and back on the trails by the new year.
