Video: 2010 Downhill world championship course preview

Lauren Rosser, from Squamish, B.C., is a rarity at these 2010 UCI World Mountain Bike and Trials World Championships. Not only did she race the junior women’s cross country race Wednesday, but today she’s donning the body armour and full face helmet to race the junior women’s downhill event at Mont-Sainte Anne. The 16-year-old will be the first Canadian downhiller of the day to hit the course. Rosser goes at 10:32 a.m. and will be followed by Kelsey Begg at 10:40 a.m. During one of her training sessions Thursday, we asked Rosser to wear a GoPro High Definition camera to record the course. You’ll notice she’s riding a freeride bike with a single crown fork in the video. Her full downhill bike was waiting for a new headset to arrive Thursday.

The junior men start at 11 a.m. and Canadian Chayse Marshall will be the first to descend. Other Canadians racing in junior men are Riley Suhan (11:04), Tyler Allison (11:10), Nick Geddes (11:16), Kyle Sangers (11:24), Nick Grimm (11:48) and Remi Gauvin (12:26). The elite women then follow and, in the field of 26 women, there are seven Canadians including Kjersten Lone, Rebecca McQueen, Vaea Verbeek and Anna Laplante, who go one after the other starting at 1:01 p.m. Then comes Miranda Miller (1:08), Micayla Gatto (1:15) and Claire Buchar (1:27).

The most hotly contested downhill competition of the day will likely come in the elite men’s race, where Steve Peat, Gee Atherton, Greg Minnaar, Samual Blenkenshop, Sam Hill and an all-star list of others could finish in the medals. Canada’s top performance should come from Steve Smith (3:21 start), who had a blistering fast start to his timed run earlier this week, but crashed hard near the bottom. Other Canadians racing in the elite men’s division include Hans Lambert (2:03), Ryan Vanderham (2:07), Thomas Vanderham (2:08), Andrew Mitchell (2:12), Rob Fraser (2:15) and Dean Tennant (2:16).