After more than a decade of tearing up Sea to Sky trails and distinguishing himself at various junior races around the globe, Tegan Cruz has made it to the big show.
The 18-year-old is in the midst of his inaugural season as an elite-level rider. He's had some growing pains: after a respectable 15th place finish at the Crankworx Rotorua Downhill (DH), he's failed to crack the top 35 at his first five UCI World Cup events.
However, Tegan is taking it all in stride.
"It's definitely been a huge jump, moving from junior to elite, and it's been a change of pace," he said. "I think it's pretty amazing to come from being a junior rider, looking up to Finn Iles and Loic Bruni and all those top guys in the sport, to now lining up in the same category as them. I look forward to one day giving them a fight, for sure."
Tegan considers himself fortunate, being raised in Pemberton with two siblings who are as active as he is: older brother Lucas and younger Levi. They tackled many sports together as kids, from basketball to alpine skiing. Tegan's first competitive riding experiences came by way of BMX, and at 13 years old he decided to pursue mountain biking for a career.
Like many young guns who hail from the Sea to Sky, Kidsworx played a huge role in Tegan's development. At one point, he viewed it as simply a fun, weeklong excursion with friends, but quickly came to admire all the pro riders passing through. He wanted to be like Iles and Bruni, and as his dreams grew, so did his skill and focus.
'The best you can'
In his final junior campaign last year, Tegan grabbed two Crankworx downhill silver medals at Innsbruck and Whistler. During the latter event, he finished roughly six seconds behind U19 Canadian Open DH champ Dane Jewett of Squamish, who managed the fastest time of anyone in any division that day.
"It's pretty amazing to race at home, having the grandparents, aunties, uncles and the whole family around to watch," said Tegan. "I still haven't claimed that gold medal in the Canadian Open yet, and now I'm moving into the elite so it just got that much harder.
"Still, you can't help but want to do the best you can in front of your family and have a Canadian Open win under your belt, especially now with the new 1199 Stevie Smith Memorial track."
Although Tegan is too young to have ever ridden with Smith, who died tragically in a 2016 motorcycle accident, he is one of many who look up to the Vancouver Islander's legacy. On the other hand, Smith would likely be proud of how Canadian professional mountain biking has grown in the last decade or so.
There are plenty of top-flight Canucks in the saddle nowadays.
Whistler and Squamish have produced talents like Iles and Jackson Goldstone, who consistently push the world's best when healthy. Lucas Cruz is a legitimate threat in his own right (though he's currently recuperating from a major surgery). On the enduro side, Jesse Melamed has a World Championship title from 2022 under his belt and Rhys Verner won his first World Cup last June.
"It's amazing to be on the World Cup circuit and have so many riders from the Sea to Sky here," Tegan remarked. "It feels like the French have dominated for so long, and now with Finn and Jackson—and hopefully some of us moving up into elite throughout the [next few] years—we can start to rival France and get Canada up top."
Tegan still loves to dabble in various disciplines, like pump track, dual slalom and Air DH, when he can. Straight-up downhill is his modus operandi, however, with its 80 kilometre/hour top speeds and demanding technical requirements. In Tegan's mind, there's no better source of gratification than throwing down an excellent run at a World Cup race to the delight of tens of thousands.
He'll get another kick at the can soon enough, when Crankworx Whistler returns from July 19 to 28. Look for the ascending Pembertonian to make noise at both his beloved Canadian Open and the returning Garbanzo DH.
