The high-power halogens of Crankworx Innsbruck once again drew the world's fastest pumpers like moths to a flame, and an impressive audience to boot. The Austrian course is a thing of beauty, and the masterful shaping held up surprisingly well despite having been exposed to some incredibly heavy rain over the last couple of days. The seeding heats went down earlier in the day, leaving us with just 16 top men and 8 top women to do battle as the floodlights took over from a golden sunset.
Plenty of big names such as Brook Macdonald and Sik Mik took their shot, but in the end we saw the more specialist pumptrack phenoms take charge, with Chaney Guennet and Adrien Loron clashing in an all French men's final. In the absence of Caroline Buchanan in the women's race we witnessed an all-American duel as Kialani Hines squared up to Jill Kintner. Austria's young talent Vali Holl wowed home crowds riding to the last medal position, and Crankworx crowd favourite Bubba Warren claimed the remaining metalwork.