Lemoine and Scott soar and spin to Crankworx Speed and Style victory

Six days in, Crankworx Whistler isn’t slowing down at all. If anything the week-long festival is ramping up towards its grand finale on the weekend. Thursday’s Clif Speed and Style ratcheted up the excitement, sending racers down the jump-filled course at top speed. Tomas Lemoine and Jordy Scott showed they had the skill, speed and composure to repeatedly throw flips, spins and tricks mid-race, all day, to take wins on Thursday.

Lil Moine’s non-stop show in Whistler

Crankworx is a busy week for any rider, mixing practice sessions and race events all week. For Tomas Lemoine, it’s a bit more of a marathon. The French slopestyle rider added in a sold-out midnight show as his alter ego, rapper Lil Moine, between Wednesday’s pump track and winning Thursday’s Speed and Style Finals.

“I feel very good, I started the day very tired from the show and the big day of practice, plus pump track yesterday,” Lemoine said of his hectic week. “I felt like I didn’t really have it in the morning, and I got better during the day I think, and just tried to hold on and not think about being tired. Let’s go! I want that medal, let’s grab one. Luckily I grabbed the gold.”

Jordy Scott versus the newcomer

On the women’s side of the Speed and Style bracket, U.S.A.’s Jordy Scott rode steady through the day to take the win.

“I’m super happy,” Scott said after her gold medal. “I have had a rough couple of weeks going into this, I got really sick after Innsbruck, and then had a huge downhill crash, so I wasn’t riding for two weeks going into this. Lots of rest, and so I came in feeling great after that big rest period but mentally it’s a bit hard when you haven’t been on the bike for two weeks and unsure how you feel getting back into it. It felt great though so it must have been good to take a week off and reset.”

Scott wasn’t just battling her own injuries and illnesses. The American had to get by Swedish upstart Alma Wiggberg. The 16-year-old consistently threw 360s during the Speed and Style progression, a first for the women’s event at Crankworx, and a deep bag of other tricks to take second on the podium.

“I had the 360 pretty good on the practice so I was stoked to just get it on every single run,” the Swedish rider said whilst grinning ear to ear. “Then for the backflip, I didn’t really have anything to lose so I just went for it, and it worked. For the second run of the gold-medal round, I saw that I was a bit behind Jordy, so I decided to just do the backflip on the second jump. I wanted to do it earlier, but I was a bit scared in the practice, so I didn’t try it, but I didn’t have anything to lose!”

King and Queen heat up

With that result, Jordy Scott edges of Vaea Verbeeck in the Queen of Crankworx standings. The American now has 443 points to Verbeeck’s 386 after the Canadian placed sixth in the Speed and Style. Bas van Steenbergen still leads the King of Crankworx points race with 292 to Adrian Loron’s 281. Tomas Lemoine moves up to third with 275 points after Thursday’s racing.

Results: 2022 Clif Speed and Style – Crankworx Whistler

1) Jordy Scott (USA) // Tomas Lemoine (FRA)
2) Alma Wiggberg (SWE) // Bernd Winkler (AUT)
3) Robin Goomes (NZL) // Billy Meaclem (NZL)