CUSCO, Peru (transcendmagazine.com) -- Recently off his win at the Pan American Championships, American Chris Van Dine has won the Mega Avalanche Peru.
Van Dine wins Continental DH title in Chile, Follows with Megavalanche Win in Peru!
Chris Van Dine must feel like a conquistador bringing home so much gold from South America. Van Dine racked up back to back wins over the past two weeks, first at the Continental (Pan-American) Championships in Chile and then at the Megavalanche in Peru.
Van Dine headed to South America back in February, just in time for the VCA urban race in Valparaiso, Chile. Despite suffering from the flu, which kept him off the bike until minutes before the race, he was able to snag fourth place. He followed the race up with a two week roadtrip with Gravity teammates Darcy Turenne, Eric Porter and Steve Smith, sessioning bike parks and legendary trails throughout the Chilean Andes.
After bidding farewell to his Gravity teammates, he headed up to the La Parva resort in the mountains outside of Santiago to train for the Continental Championships with his Chilean compadres. In 2007, Van Dine was the first North American gravity racer to compete in the PanAm Championships, when he leveraged USA Cycling to permit him to race in Argentina. Up until that point USA Cycling only allowed cross country athletes to compete in the UCI protected event. As the newly appointed gravity athlete trustee for USA Cycling, Van Dine was instrumental in the inclusion of the first US gravity team at the Continental Championship this year.
In the downhill final, the timing system went blank just as Van Dine crossed the line in a full drift. Before his time was posted, Brazil’s national hero and six-time PanAm champ, Markolf Berkchtold came storming through, taking the hot seat. The last two racers came up short and the Brazilians charged the finish area, picking Markoff up in a sea of yellow and blue. A few seconds later, over the chaos of the Brazilian celebration an announcement was made in Spanish and the Chileans absolutely erupted - in the middle of the swarm was a USA jersey as they hoisted CVD onto their shoulders and started chanting his name. Winning this UCI event makes Van Dine the first North American to win the title of Elite Downhill Champion of the Western Hemisphere, and the blue, green, and red stripes of the American Champion.
The following weekend CVD changed his ticket and headed to the Peruvian Andes, outside of Cusco, for the Megavalanche. Previous winners of this event include Steve Peat and Filip Polc. Van Dine was still on fire from his win in Chile, and after only two practice runs he qualified second. After crossing the line in the qualifier in the freezing rain after the 15K descent from 14,000´ Van Dine commented, "The course is burly with all this rain! I´m definitely a bit undergunned on my 4” slalom bike, but my new Cannondale Rize is an amazing bike, hands down the best mountain bike I´ve ever ridden. So I´m gonna make some fenders and just run what I brung.."
On race day with a new two final format, Van Dine beat out the other 300 racers back to back and went 1 1, scooping up his second win in two weeks. On his win, he said, “I´m so glad I made it to Peru for this race, the Peruvian Andes and their people are absolutely amazing. Of course it feels great to win, but I’d much rather open doors than build trophy shelves.” That statement was echoed the previous weekend by his USA teammates who saw Chris’s ambassadorship with the South Americans (who lovingly refer to him as “Huevon”). In Chile, USA teammate Lars Tribus commented, “It has been a really cool trip…we were treated like bros in Chile because of CVD.”
The entire crew at Gravity would like to send their congratulations to Chris for a great month of racing in South America and wish him the best of the luck with the rest of his 2009 season! Look for CVD to be back on the North American race scene at Sea Otter.
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