Craig and Emmett win national championship super D

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Adam Craig (Rabobank-Giant) and Kelli Emmett (Giant) raced to super D national titles on Sunday morning in Sun Valley, Idaho. Racers began the super D with a climb, then blazed down a loose and dusty track to the finish.

Very similar to the 2011 championships, Craig defeated Carl Decker (Giant) by another very narrow margin - just over one second. Macky Franklin (Orbea Tuff Shed) was third.

Defending super D national champion Craig finished in 21:26.1. "My run was fine - perfect, but you know, you can never tell," he said before he knew his time would hold up as the fastest. "There are so many little turns, you always wonder if you can go faster through them or if you can pedal more out of them."

"At 9:00 am in the morning, I was just happy to keep it clean and safe." Craig was riding with an injured shoulder, sustained the previous week. He was onboard a prototype Giant bike, but would not comment on any details about it as he claimed his seventh super D national title.

"Last year I remember feeling really horrible on the climb and kind of having that mess me up for the rest of my run. For today, I just tried to do a five-minute threshold interval on the climb and then pedal other places. It worked."

Decker, a perennial rival of Craig's, came the closest to beating Craig. "I didn't have any mistakes. There was a little bit of dust from other people, but it didn't affect my pace at all," said Decker.

"Adam got me by a second and a half last year. I would have loved to get him this year."

Macky Franklin (Orbea-Tuff Shed) rounded out the top three, with a time just over 13 seconds slower than Craig. "I think I was catching Craig on the uphill, but that guy goes down fast," said Franklin.

"It's loose and dusty. It's those switchbacks that get you - you just slide out no matter what. I had two little glitches where I went off the trail and had to hop back on, but it was fast and fun."

Jeremy Horgan-Kobelski (Subaru/Trek) was fourth while Colton Andersen (Durango Devo) was fifth.

Women

Kelli Emmett beat Giant teammate Elizabeth English and Lea Davison (Specialized). Her winning time en route to her third super D national title was 24:33. English was just over 18 seconds behind her.

"I'm psyched - I wanted to win today for sure," said Emmett. "I saw Lea on the climb - she was right there. I was surprised, but I've been doing a lot of super D stuff this year."

"It was a good run. I was a little cautious on some stuff but it was all about being smooth and not making mistakes up there. Conditions were very loose, but I like that. I'll take it."

Emmett admitted that she did feel tired from the previous day's cross country but noted that everyone "was in the same boat".

Third place finisher Davison took the conservative approach, but was ok with that. She was 25.4 seconds slower than Emmett.

"My run was solid. I was feeling a little flat on that climb. I was definitely feeling yesterday's cross country, but I tried to go as hard as I could and be as smooth as I could on the descent. I didn't want any foul play and just wanted to stay upright. It was a bit conservative, but I'm happy with it."

Heather Irmiger (Subaru-Trek) was racing her first super D ever and finished fourth. "I'm working on my descending. If you want to be a top notch international racer, you really need to be on it with everything. Locally, I might be a good descender, but on the world scale, I'd like to be crushing it more."

Kathy Sherwin (Stan's NoTubes Elite Women's team) rounded out the top five.

Juniors

Among the junior men, Keegan Swenson (Cannondale) was fastest and would have finished in the top five of the elite men's race. India Waller (Durango Devo) was the junior women's winner.

Full Results