The international freeride event, which attracted riders from six countries, was blessed with perfect weather, Emmerson Wilken notes.
"Because the weather was good the riding was out of this world, as well, and then, of course, Queenstown showed up.
"I think they almost sold out of tickets, so everybody wanted to see it, which was good news, too."
Wilken, who was also in the event crew, says the riders were "blown away".
"They obviously loved the design of the place, and then how well the jumps worked.
"For us, it was like one of those dream-type build scenarios, it’s everything we’d normally want to do but just on a way bigger scale, and then to see the world’s best riders do the best tricks on it, it ticks all the boxes, really."
The only down side was riders only had four days’ practice on a course with about 28 features.
Wilken: "There was so much there for them to learn, like, it took us a lot longer to test everything.
"The problem was it got windy every day at about 11, so they only had the morning’s worth of practice so, yeah, 100% they were rushed."
He thinks that shortage of practice accounted for some no-shows, though he understands local-based Robin Goomes — a favourite in the women’s field — was injured.
Wilken says the course has now been made unrideable, "just because it’s on private land, and then come next year we just make it all go again".
"We’ll make a few changes, we’ve actually got consent to build more, we might even dothat."
The men’s winner was Poland’s Szymon Godziek and the women’s was Argentina’s Cami Nogueira.
Event director Sophie Luther says "it’s been a massive effort to create this incredible course and bring a world-class freeride mountain bike event to New Zealand".
She’s particularly grateful to the government for its major events fund support, and philanthropist and mountain bike enthusiast Rod Drury "for his vision and dedication in making this event a reality".
