Panorama B.C. will not soon forget the name Miranda Miller.
The resort destination hosted back-to-back national mountain bike competitions for the first time this year, and both weekends saw Miller dominate her pro elite women's category.
At the Mad Trapper Canada Cup Sunday (July 18) -the second stop on the 2010 Canada Cup circuit - Miller attacked a downhill course she was already familiar with from the previous weekend's Canadian National Championships race, in which she placed second.
This time around, she would take no less than top spot with a time of 3:36.43.
Miller said her knowledge of the course was both a benefit and a challenge.
"When you first ride the course in the second week of practice, it didn't feel like practice because you already knew what was going on, so it was hard to get your head in the game and remind yourself it's another race. It just didn't feel quite as serious as the other ones," she said.
"But I think in the end it was good because you didn't have to pay as much attention, it was a lot less stressful."
Cycling BC coach Dave Hord said Miller gave an impressive performance.
"Outstanding in one of the roughest sections of the course. I think she was probably the smoothest and the fastest woman to come through it - no problems at all."
Miller is dealing with residual issues from a broken leg sustained in January, saying she still wears a brace to ride. She credits Cycling BC for providing her with all the support she could need.
"They provided all the accommodation, all the travel for us to get there, and they just made it super easy. We had coaches at the top with spin trainers for warm ups, they just did tons of stuff for us, especially [coaches] Chad Hendron, Dave Hord and Mark Bunyan."
Miller's next national level race is in Mt. Washington next week and after that she returns to her own backyard with Whistler's Crankworx in early August.
She'd hoped to compete in Switzerland and Italy this summer, but lack of funds won't allow it. The prize money she received in Panorama is just about enough to cover the cost of competing, she said.
"In terms of product support I've got pretty much anything I can ask for. It's just the financial support that isn't really there, other than 麻豆社国产Savings which done an awesome job with $5,000 a year on a three year contract with them. So that's really generous of them."
