The dust, the dirt, the angle, the accidents...Crystal took its vengeance today. The hardest course yet thrilled spectators and crushed competitors with its severe terrain and unforgiving length. Marla Streb crashed in the qualifier — bad. The last reports (unconfirmed) had her ripping her Achilles tendon away from the bone, leaving her leg unusable. Missy Giove went down — twice. Leigh Donovan crashed. Everyone crashed.

Standing at the finish loop was like hearing an entry log in an emergency room; various levels of pain and discomfort, emergencies handled as quickly as possible. Ten minute delay before the pro women's class; a rider is down on the course and they are removing him with a stretcher.

"This is the best course this year..." was heard frequently throughout the pro ranks. The course was not a pedaler, and the length (at three-plus miles, nearly twice the standard run) was brutal and, somehow, enjoyable.

The ladies came in, one after the other, speaking almost solely of the crashing. This course was steep and loose. Twenty feet out of the gate, rocks led racers to the first 90º right-hander. There wasn't much pedaling, mostly just hanging on. Many of the riders crashed two and three times, but that didn't stop Elke Brutsaert. She had a plan, and she took it to the bank for the win.

"My strategy was to have as much energy as I could at the bottom," said a relatively calm Brutsaert. "You only get to grip the brakes with one finger, and so you need all the grip strength you have. The bottom section was the most challenging, because we didn't get to practice on that a whole lot. It is not that technical, but it's exhilarating. Your fingers are tired from hanging on and braking, but if you let go of the brakes, you're suddenly going Mammoth Kamikaze fast. I was getting really sloppy at the bottom."

Sloppy or not, she handled the win at 6 minutes 51.59 seconds, a full 6.44 seconds faster than Missy "the Missile" Giove, who lived up to every bit of her reputation by bombing the course and crashing twice in the process.

"I crashed twice. I hit a tree near at the bottom, it was stupid! I launched off the bike, but the bike just stayed there. It's just so hard," said Missy.

Giove may have had some justifiable reason beyond the other top pros to lament the course's vicious nature; she had to sit out Saturday's dual slalom due to ankle injury. Yes, Giove still took 2nd in spite of an ankle injury.

Leigh Donovan took 3rd, despite crashing as well on the difficult course, but her circumstance also showed how much the course excited spectators. "It was great until I crashed. I was pretty sloppy in sections, but I would have been totally satisfied with it if I hadn't crashed. I haven't crashed very much at all this week. A course marshal shouted loud right beside me, 'You're winning!' It completely broke my focus. It's not like people beside the course shouting at me to do well. This is the second time in my career that something like this has happened."

The men felt the terrain just as much as the women did, and the first few runs brought times in the high sixes and sevens. The first really solid times came around at 6:30 or so, and from then on it was a real comp. Slots 1-46 in the final results were separated by less than a minute.

Many of the most aggressive times came out of the Australian contingent, which is growing larger at every race. Seven of the top ten downhill slots went to riders from places other than the US, and six of those seven came from Australia and New Zealand.

New Brisbane's Christopher Kovarik (Intense/Arnette) just screamed in behind a jubilant Nathan Rennie (AUS, Yeti), who brought Team Yeti back from the brink of the Marla Streb tragedy with a 1st-place finish. Rennie, at 19, is able to rebound at an amazing level. While most everyone else was groaning in pain, Rennie was jumping up and down in the winner's circle, and was ready to shoot it once again.

"I had a good run. I didn't touch a foot down the whole run. I didn't concentrate on pedaling, I just concentrated on keeping my feet up. I heard the crowd cheering on the whole way down, so I knew I was on a good run. The fatigue factor was not bad. I'm fine, I could do it all again," exclaimed Rennie in the interview tent.

Nathan Rankin (New Zealand, Foes/Azonic) came in 3rd, just 5.17 seconds down, but wasn't quite as ready as Rennie to run again.

"The course is real long for how rough it is. It was a challenge just to stay on your bike and not crash. I nearly crashed coming off a big jump, in the bumps on the landing zone," explained Rankin.

Many of the American favorites did not fare well on the course and came in relatively far back in the standings. Crowd-pleaser Shaums March took 16th at 28.99 seconds down, and John Tomac, who celebrated his retirement at Crystal, took 33rd at 40.84 seconds behind the winner.

Hopefully, the same level of spectacular downhilling we've come to expect will be available at Norba National #5 at Mammoth Mountain. Crystal has definitely pushed the envelope. The competition earned its pro/elite status making for some exciting, exciting racing.

I'm looking forward to Mammoth.

— Michael Wolfson, for MountainZone.com