I wonder what happened to Emily Batty. She's normally a pretty strong contender. She rides a bit of DH and Moto so i wouldn't think the rough stuff would bother her that much.
She was on 650B this past weekend and it looks like the past few races. It looks like she started out on 26" and changed up to the current bike at some point.
Probably because her team's bike sponser has eliminated 26er hardtails from the top of the lineup for next year, and she's too tiny for the 29ers.It amuses me though that the race team not only uses SR Suntour forks, but has won multiple world championships, world cups and olympic gold with them, yet they don't put them on the production bikes.