A bad meal and the defence of a national downhill title

Miranda Miller broke both her arms in 2014 and one arm the year before. The injuries derailed two downhill mountain biking seasons. In 2015, she won the Canadian downhill championships. This past July, it wasn’t an injury that nearly kept her from being in top shape to defend her national title at Sun Peaks, B.C. It was dodgy eggs.

“I’m pretty sure I had salmonella,” said the rider from Squamish, B.C. “A couple of days before I left for nationals, I was on way back home from an Enduro World Series event in Italy. I ate some gnarly eggs in the Geneva airport. I was hungry, ate them, and thought, ‘I probably shouldn’t have done that.’”

On the first day of nationals, which featured seeding runs, Miller was fourth. The next day, she was finally clear of the eggs’ effects. “The area is always pretty silty and dusty. I know the course was going to be pretty blown out in the corners,” she said. “I took the slower-is-faster approach. But the top section was super high-speed so my tactic was to go hard up top and back off a tiny bit at the bottom.” Her strategy worked. She took her second national championship win.