Aaron Gwin won qualifying by 3.603 seconds over Great Britain’s Danny Hart at the UCI Mountain Bike World Cup event in Mont-Sanite-Anne, Quebec on Friday. The top finish gave Gwin 50 more points in the overall standings and despite Hart finishing second Gwin’s lead grew to 218 points in the season standings. If Gwin wins the final tomorrow he will move 258 points in front of Gwin and won’t even need to score points in the final event of the season to win the season title. It’s hard to see a scenario at this point where he doesn’t end up on top for the second straight year and fourth time in his career.

14 of the US riders reached the final with Luca Shaw in seventh and Charlie Harrison in 19th the most noteworthy finishers. None of the three US riders who missed the final had participated in a race earlier this year. Also all that talk of there finally being a US woman in the field and Amanda Batty did not start qualifying so there won’t be any US women competing on Saturday. The downhill final is on Saturday with a cross-country event on Sunday.

Previous Mountain Bike World Cup Downhill Coverage:
Mont-Sainte-Anne Preview