3 stage wins for Giant rider

Giant Factory Off-Road team rider Kelli Emmett rode her Anthem X Advanced SL to a convincing overall win at TR3, a grueling three-day off-road stage race in the Canadian Rockies. Also representing Giant at the August 8-10 event was Rabobank-Giant Off-Road team rider Adam Craig, who scored a podium finish in the men’s overall standings.

Emmett, Craig and their teammate Carl Decker competed in the UCI-sanctioned event—which was part of the weeklong TransRockies race that features two-person teams—in part to train for upcoming World Cup and World Championship races.

“I hadn’t really raced in wet, slippery, muddy East Coast type conditions yet this year, so I thought this would be perfect training for the World Cup finals in Windham [New York] and World Championships in Mont-Sainte-Anne [Canada],” Emmett said. “It was pretty epic with some really long, hard climbs.”

Emmett finished more than an hour ahead of her nearest competitor in the Open Women’s category, winning all three stages including the opening time trial in Fernie, British Columbia.

“The climbs were so steep,” Emmett said. “You look up and think there’s no way you’ll be able to ride up it but the Anthem gets such great traction you can just keep pedaling up.”

Emmett, Craig and the rest of Giant’s XC riders now turn their attention to the final races of the World Cup season, and then the World Championships in Mont-Sainte-Anne, Quebec, September 2-5.